If there is one overarching principle of endurance-building, this is it. Call it gradual adaptation. That is, be consistent, be patient, and build up slowly. The gradual-adaptation principle is deeply rooted in human physiology and has worked for about a billion runners since Paleolithic man started stalking wild animals in East Africa 150,000 years ago. It still works today.
—Boost Your Endurance, runnersworld.com
The meaning of capitalism will be subject to precapitalistic meanings, and the conflict expressed in such a confrontation will be one in which man is seen as the aim of production, and not production as the aim of man.
—Michael T. Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America11Michael T. Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 11.
I could not tell you why I began running as an adult.
It was a possession, or I was becoming the person my habits amounted to, spirit dripping out of mouth in sweat.
A girl I follow on Instagram says, “I’m a runner now.”
Running is an identity and then, as modernity demands, a productive obsession, easy to commend.
A runner maintains their mileage, their bankrolls, their pace, their injury, and debt. A runner seeks gold to quench the industrialist’s tastes. A runner seizes opportunity without cost. A runner sees the horizon line. A runner uses all available resources. A runner knows what they deserve. A runner keeps going no matter what.
Running is a conquest and then, as modernity demands, an act of destiny, made manifest.
A runner makes progress. A runner thinks it feels good to “get out.” But a runner is no “runaway.” A runner comes by choice. A runner is possessive of place. A runner eschews violence and needs the police. A runner picks all names. A runner speaks “in general.” A runner reconciles history. A runner finds total comfort in total control. A runner has a good sense of direction. A runner does not feel chains as long as most movement is free. A runner keeps going no matter what.
Running is an endurance exercise and then, as modernity demands, work.
A runner believes suffering is inevitable and recursive. A runner believes they are suffering. A runner believes oppression is inevitable and recursive. A runner believes they are oppressed. A runner believes struggling is inevitable and recursive. A runner believes they are struggling.
A runner keeps going no matter what.
I begin to see the need for everything I mock. I run more than 300 miles and buy a pair of shoes with soles so thick I want to gnaw through them just to “get my money’s worth.” I begin to consider wind and humidity, and their relation to sweat. I monitor the rain. I time meals. I time sleep. I time the distance from one castle to another. I learn about degenerative conditions and chronic conditions, conditions of muscle and conditions of bone. I learn how to pre-wrap. I learn how to ice. I am introduced as “a runner.” I plan to stay with a girl for the weekend and bring my running shoes in a plastic bag. I learn the paths. I learn the trails. I make playlists. I sign up for a traditional man-versus-horse relay. I shower in warm water tempered by cold sweat. I take naps.
I become ignorant.
I am writing in the context of capitalism and America.
We have been taught that assigning metrics is not infliction. It is naturalized to consider life in relation to quantities.
My grandfather died at fifty-one. The cancer was aggressive, a sprinter. It killed him in less than six months. The speed was related to stress. He worked thirty years for the same company. My grandmother lives on his unused vacation days.
My father retired. When I call, his voice is reedy and unfocused. I ask if he’s just been on a run. He says no. We get to talking about the economy. His new voice, pallid, passive, exhausted, wastes itself on a victory lap. “It will keep going. It will be back where it was.”
An eleven-year-old runs 100 times or more around the track and imagination is lost in numbers.
She did not know she could stand on the edge of a lake as sun rose over imaginary kingdoms, and rankled republics.
She did not know, in quiet streets, her ragged breath could leave winter air in tatters, rip, smear, and drag, flag after violent flag.
She did not know she was angry. Can you imagine? She just kept going. Can you imagine?
Running injuries are often progressive. Ruptures result from hundreds of miles and hours of impact accreting. Lives can be changed for months or years due to such grave injuries.
One morning I woke up and my ankle was swollen purple. Applying pressure felt like stepping on lines of live wire electrified with pain. I hopped to see a friend who lived across the hall. Her father was a doctor. She picked up my foot. She moved it back and forth. “You should probably go to the hospital.” As an American, I asked, “Are you sure?” And as an American she sighed and said “Yes.” It was a grave injury. I understood.
There are books, shows, podcasts, chats, magazines, and Facebook pages dedicated to runners’ precautions. There are symptoms that progress from chronic to constant to malignant. There are rules of decency, of pace, of empathy, of gait and kindness. But to endure is the runner’s greatest gift, to act nobly, to supersede being human and finish the race.
How often do you become indebted to a twisted intent and its unending demands?
How many conquerors were rebels made miniscule by calculations of selfishness?
How much pain are you willing to accept before everything must change?
Imagine waking to disaster. Imagine you cannot move from privacy for six to twelve weeks. Imagine you can believe it is boring. Imagine terror visits your kitchen at night. Imagine you try to bake it with lemon and turmeric. Imagine it refuses. Imagine it is a maelstrom. Imagine it is relentless. Imagine it shadows the walls and shivers the lights. Imagine you are sad. Imagine you miss horizons you’ve never seen. Imagine you are considering hysteria. Imagine pressing your finger on a button for disaster like a morphine drip you mainline while watching the news. Imagine no one you know is sick. Imagine memory is a rainbow you watch fading down the wall. Imagine waking to disaster. Imagine it is a maelstrom. Imagine it tears the roof off your house. Imagine you are drenched in myth and fact. Stocks are sold. Cops are out. No one can breathe. Inhale once on each pose. Imagine waking to disaster. Imagine relief is the wreckage of the past. Imagine you cannot go forward. Imagine you cannot go back. Imagine your pockets are empty. Imagine your neighbours do not offer. Imagine your home is stolen land. Imagine waking to disaster. Imagine vowing to put on “real pants.” Imagine going to the park. Imagine the first sun in weeks. Imagine counting on the commons. Imagine you stop counting them. Imagine waking to disaster.
Do not endure. Resist.
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