I’ve taken today’s blog title from author Haruki Murakami’s book: What I Think About When I Think About Running. It’s a memoir about being a runner, which started the same way he became a novelist. He decided one day to become a novelist, sold his nightclub, and sat down to write. One day he decided to run, so he laced up his shoes and ran. Lest we think he’s some kind of miracle, he does note that when he first started running he could barely run for 20 minutes straight. So we know he’s not invincible.
Murakami says he doesn’t think of anything while he runs. “As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I’m not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.”
When I hike, I tend not to think of much, either. I find that if I get preoccupied with a problem I’m trying to solve or an argument I’m trying to make in an essay, I slow down. I can’t think and hike at the same time lol. So when I really want to work hard on a section of trail, I have to clear my mind and just focus on the trail in front of me and any cool things that pop out at me while I hike.
Murakami listens to The Lovin’ Spoonful and sometimes CCR and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beck. I don’t listen to anything, even though I wish I could because then I could read more books! But I want to hear what’s around me, especially bears and cougars. These are real dangers on the trail.
He feels his body moving through space and time and checks in with it to make sure that everything is working well. I do the same, checking if my knees are bothering me (I’ve had two surgeries on one and one on the other), if I’m hyperventilating going uphill. That sort of thing.
I find that when I don’t go I feel off, not quite myself. But when I do go, I feel euphoria. I feel joy. “No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act.” I think this is exactly why I feel good after a hike: I’ve had a contemplative, meditational morning.
Murakami believes this not just about running, but about writing as well. “Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible.” This seems like a generalized statement about authors that likely isn’t true. But I’m all there for the type of person Murakami is: “I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone.” (emphasis his) Indeed, he writes that he “placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing, not associating with all the people around me. I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an unspecified number of readers.”
I’m not a complete hermit like Murakami seems to be. He focuses on running and writing, and not much else. I agree that writing can be a meditational act like hiking, but I don’t agree about not associating with people around me—in fact some of them give me great fodder for writing about. I wonder about Murakami’s wife, who only merits two instances in his book and in both cases is helping him at a race. Is he able to focus on running and writing because she does everything else?
Then there’s the role of willpower in keeping on running day after day. Murakami notes that he doesn’t believe that “it’s merely willpower that makes you able to do something…Human beings naturally continue doing things they like and they don’t continue what they don’t like.” But when I go hiking, I’m relying partly on willpower. I have to overcome my preference for staying in bed and sleeping off my extra meds, or getting up and going to the mountain. Willpower is what gets me there, but I still like what I do.
“I know that if I hadn’t become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have definitely been different.” Would my work be different if I didn’t hike? Perhaps. I use a lot of nature-related content in my writing, from things I’ve seen on the trail. My book is about being outdoors as a field researcher. My next book is about the emotions that arise as I hike, gaining confidence to tackle more difficult trails. I tend to do a ‘mind dump’ when I come back from my hikes, fodder for writing the book later. So being outdoors has definitely affected my work.
Murakami runs an ultramarathon and finds that by the end “I’m me, and at the same time not me. That’s what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling. The mind wasn’t so important…” I’ve toyed with the idea of running an ultra-marathon, but I don’t think I have the stamina to run that far. I can’t even run for 10 minutes straight without being ready to keel over. I guess I could train for one, maybe try and think of something philosophical on longer and longer runs. But that would cut into my everyday life, so I’d have to be strict with my schedule.
“Even when I grow old and feeble, when people warn me it’s about time to throw I the towel, I won’t care. As long as my body allows, I’ll keep on running,” writes Murakami. How long will I hike? As long as I can. It just makes me feel good, even when it’s challenging. And feeling good is in scarce supply at the moment, so I have to make the most of it.
