Ultra running: A primer for love?

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Variations on the theme of love have popped up in countless conversations with runners both on the trail and off. Having been lucky enough to experience it myself, ultra running and love, I have long admired the couples that have bonded over running and continue to share their passion beyond the trails. At the same time, I inquire into other runners’ marital status, and I am time and again surprised to learn that many remain single. Although I come to expect it among my non-running friends and acquaintances, it seems somehow incompatible with ultra running. How can this happen when we are so privileged as to mingle with states of bliss brought on by 10, 20, 50 or 100 mile runs? * I no longer refer to these states as “runner’s high” because I think they embody so much more than the temporary state of mind implied by this phrase. In a recent experience during a 10 mile social run, for example, we had just returned to the host’s house when several people started to talk about feeling giddy and peaceful from the morning’s run. It wasn’t the first time that I had witnessed conversation flowing so easily among runners. I left that day with a feeling that I had experienced something very special. Reflecting upon it, I wonder how our experiences with running bliss differ from experiences of true love. I think that the bliss we feel during and after runs may in fact be of the same composition found in real love. To better understand this proposition, we need to examine the different types of love and how they surface in our being.

The Essence of our Being
For centuries, philosophers have wondered about the nature of our being. Borrowing from various thinkers, I find if useful to imagine each of us as possessing a core with layers of our personality built around this center. Our ego then mediates our experiences with life. Our personality can be conceptualized as the channel through which our fears, distrust, reactions, dishonesty, aggression, perceptions, resentments and defenses flow. The following diagram may help in understanding this construction of the self:

What lies at our core is one of the central issues of every religion, philosophy and spiritual practice. It is sometimes described as the essence of our being. I believe that through running, and possibly through various other pursuits such as meditation, drumming etc., we are able to strip down the built layers and experience life through our core; through the essence of our being. This space in time is often what is referred to as the “present moment”. In this state of being, we are focused only on what is happening around us at every occurring moment. We are not consumed with thoughts of the past or those of the future. Therefore stress and anxiety are absent. It is not that thoughts or accompanying emotions disappear, it is that we are able to let go of them just as easily as they have appeared.

Love and the Present Moment
What we are able to feel in the present moment is a real or true form of love. Buddhism calls it “absolute” love as it is not open to subjective interpretation. It just is. It is similar to the pure state of love felt between parents and a newborn child. Many who experience this state, however, whether in running, with a newborn or upon the spark of meeting a new love, also claim to experience its dissolution over time. I can think of friends who have joked that the giddiness of fresh love disappears as the stresses and overwhelming challenges of everyday life take over. I would argue that their love turns from absolute to relative.

Relative Love
As I ponder it further, I wonder whether we are conditioned to think of the components of love in more rational or practical terms. For example, how many conversations have we engaged in where it has been said that the following factors need to be considered in pursuit of real love: chemistry, situational limitations, type, our individual ability to give or receive at certain time in our lives, our state of personal development or even our individual levels of awareness and flexibility. Each of these components of time or circumstance means that love is contingent or conditional on something or someone else. These conditions represent relative love. Loving someone in this way is mediated through the outer layers or our personality. As we change, so too may our love for our partners. This may lead us to believe that love is based primarily on a constant negotiation or dovetailing of our needs with those of another.

Relation to Running
Getting back to running, I wonder why we are able to nurture states of bliss throughout time in running, in spite of our changing nature. Could it be that it is easier to enter into the present moment when we do not have to contend with other human beings? Or is it simply a matter of running endlessly to conjure up this state on a more consistent basis? Many runners are oblivious as to how to nurture this state. Perhaps they view it as contingent on a great number of variables from their current mood, their state of physical fitness, what they ate or did not eat before a run, the weather or any number of other extraneous factors. This is rather akin to the concept of relative love. Experiencing bliss or entering into the present moment in running can in fact be nurtured. Accepting all things and occurrences just as they are, is a key to entry. Similarly, acceptance is the key to experiencing a very similar state, what I am calling absolute love, in the everyday.

Acceptance as the Key to Running Bliss and Love
Transitioning through the outer layers of our being is achievable by accepting all things, all people just as they are, just as they occur. As I have mentioned in other articles, it is the act of letting go of judgements and emotional attachments to other people, things and events that facilitates entry into the present moment. Sometimes this happens to us spontaneously during the act of running but for those who practice, it can be facilitated. Either way, I think that we are very fortunate to experience different ways of being, or versions of ourselves through running. To enable learning and growth from these experiences with the present moment, we need to reflect. In this reflection, we will be able to see that in our states of running bliss we are accepted just as we are by others. Similarly, we accept others just for who they are. It is through the process of acceptance that we can transit into a state of bliss, making running itself feel effortless. Similarly, it is in the same process of accepting ourselves, others and events just for what they are that enables us to transit from the experience of relative to absolute love. If others can like us without our ego turned on or our defenses mounted, then we can hopefully find more courage to live closer to the core of who we are. The reality of love, or experiencing “running bliss” is that it is marked by the interweaving of the “perfect and imperfect, finite and infinite and absolute and relative.” It takes practice, knowledge, understanding and patience to make this transition from operating primarily from our outer layers to that of our core.

Ultra running is a tool that allows us to experience states of bliss. It is then up to us to transfer the lessons learned from running into the everyday. Otherwise, ultra running may be nothing more than a venue that allows us to experience but an extended moment of bliss. To try and recreate this state in our everyday lives, we can challenge ourselves to find love in others and ourselves “in spite of and together with their [and our] weaknesses, errors and imperfections”. Running is therefore, but a primer for love, both teaching us and giving us a basecoat to work with.

© 2006
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* I use the term “running” throughout this article. In all cases, “ultra running” is implied.

Note: A fundamental question concerning this article is the distinction between love shared between two people and love felt for all sentient beings. The latter represents a more universal love commonly referred to in Buddhism and in other philosophies/religions. Although this is an important distinction, further analysis into the topic is beyond the scope of this article.



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Further Reads

• Can We Cure Fear? Marc Siegel in Scientific American Mind, Volume 16, Number 4, 2005

• Control Your Anger! Iris Mauss in Scientific American Mind, Volume 16, Number 4, 2005.

• Erasing Memories. R. Douglas Fields in Scientific American Mind, Volume 16, Number 4, 2005.

• Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth. Roy F. Baumeister, Jennifer D. Campbell, Joachim I. Krueger and Kathleen D. Vohs in Scientific American Mind, Volume 16, Number 4, 2005.

No Time To Lose. Pema Chodron in Shambhala Sun, January 2006.

The Perfect Love We Seek, The Imperfect Love We Live. John Welwood in Shambhala Sun, January 2006.