Should I run or should I not?

Since the early 90s, from around 1991, running has become an important part of my life. That’s practically 15 years of running 4, 5 or 6 times each week, all year round. I must have run a total of more than 30 thousand kilometres!

Running has kept me fit and in good shape. I’ve managed to run 7 marathons (all in Malta), various half marathons, and dozens of races. I’ve become actively involved in an athletics club, also editing it’s official magazine for two years, and setting up and maintaining its website. There were lots of ups and downs, various injuries that kept me away from training, but also a good number of memorable runs, especially those races where I did well. Through running I have also acquired many friends, with whom I’ve shared numerous training runs as well as friendly rivalry during races.

When I moved to Brussels in Belgium, various things in my life had to change, and this would also include my running lifestyle. In summer it’s fantastic, with long hours of sunshine and comfortable temperatures. But winter is the exact opposite – it’s cold, often rainy, and dark for most of the time except Saturdays and Sundays, each with a 7-hour window of daylight available. For over a year I managed to keep my running schedule, and also do some races in Malta on my various week-end visits there, but the enjoyment was lacking, mostly because I was doing all my training alone, often early in the dark, freezing early mornings of Brussels.

As I prepared for my 8th marathon, to be held in Malta on 6th March 2005, I finally realised that I was no longer enjoying myself running. More than that, running had become a chore, something that I had to do, and that was conditioning a good part of the rest of my activities. Any activity that cropped up, a social event in the evening, a working trip to Luxembourg, a concert, a weekend trip to visit my family in Malta, practically anything whatsoever, would wreak havoc with the strict weekly running plan required to prepare properly for an event like the marathon.

At one stage I realised that I was a slave to my running. It had come to form too large a part of my life. My weekends were dominated by two runs, one of them an energy sapping long run of close to 3 hours, that I had to do in order to prepare for the marathon. After that, I hardly had any time and energy to go out and do anything else. I ended up wishing that I would suffer from a muscular strain or similar type of injury that would prevent me from “having” to run. It was clearly an unhealthy situation.

I kept running right up to my injury, in fact. It was then that I took a drastic decision. There are other activities just as enjoyable as running, and that can be undertaken at leisure, and not under self-imposed duress. I’m taking a break from sports, to allow my hamstring to recover its full strength. After that, I hope to start again doing physical activity, with an important difference. The training schedule will be more relaxed and more flexible. The flexibility will also involve type of activity, now hopefully to include cycling and swimming along with running, and only when I have the chance and when I feel like it. The idea is to enjoy myself and to maintain a reasonable level of fitness, which does not need to be that of competition.

I may gain a couple of kilos this way, but I will also gain the freedom to:

• wake up at a decent hour, enjoy a cup of coffee and have a relaxed start to the day
• enjoy a night out with friends without worrying about my training schedule
• use the weekend to travel and discover new places
• go out cycling and explore the surroundings of Brussels
• enjoy playing a game of football whenever the opportunity crops up, without worrying about risking forfeiting my “sacred” training schedule

Running is a fantastic activity, but it needs to be limited. You should either do lots of competitive running for a limited period of your life, or for limited periods of your life, or just casually for your entire life. Mine will be a mix of these three options, depending on my mood.

This is my 2006 new year’s resolution. For me, a new life begins at 43. Happy New Year!

Paris

A three-day visit to Paris last summer was a pleasant surprise. What a beautiful city! I couldn’t stop taking pictures. I am including a small sample with the photo albums.

Poeżija

SUFANI TAS-SEJJIEĦ

 

Is-sufan tal-ħarifa kien sabiħ

Meta l-kamera ħadet in-nar

U aħna l-boloħ niddejqu u nistagħġbu

Fid-dar tal-qraba u l-ħbieb il-kbar.

 

Is-sejjieħ ħa ’l Salvu għand is-sur

Imma ċ-ċinematografija tal-qamar

Sabet dak li riedet dik ta’ qablu

Fit-twieqi ż-żgħar ta’ nofsinhar.

 

Fl-aħħar stembaħt u rajthom

Gzuz u kobob ta’ karti fil-kxaxen

Ma niflaħx inħoss il-qtugħ ta’ qalb

’il quddiem fuq ir-Rediffusion.

 

O Poplu Safi, qum u isma’!

Is-siegħa tat-temp waslet qatigħ

Ma nafux, u xorta waħda nafu

Dwar is-sufani tas-sejjieħ.

 

Nota tal-poeta – din il-poeżija, ispirata minn oħrajn li kont imġiegħel nistudja biex inġib il-Matrikola tal-Malti ħalli nkun nista’ nidħol l-università, se nippubblikaha fi ktieb li jkun jagħmel parti mis-sillabus il-ġdid tal-Matrikola tal-Malti. Fl-eżami, l-istudenti se jkollhom jagħtu kummenti li jagħmlu sens dwar din u poeżiji oħra bħalha mimlijin għerf u intellettwalità.

 

Health warning: the above "poem" and the "poet’s" comment underneath should not be taken too seriously!

I’ve just discovered the meaning of life

What are we all doing here? Are we just an accident, resulting in a runaway chain of events that we call Life? Countless billions of organisms compete with each other all over the planet, seemingly with one specific purpose – to make copies of themselves. Are we humans any different?

Does the fact that that I’m writing this have any impact at all on whether my genes will be passed on to future generations? Is this, or any other endeavour in the arts, the sciences and all those activities that are the product of our seemingly unique minds (if we limit ourselves to just this planet) an indirect means for us to achieve greater recognition, or in many cases financial means, which in turn increases our chances of survival and further reproduction by our offspring? Or are our minds, our consciousness, our wondrous awareness of the fact of existence, a freak by-product of DNA replication?

This is a historic moment for the universe that we know. For the first time after all these billions of years, DNA is no longer the undisputed master of its own existence. It has given rise to an entity that can manipulate it. We are fast taking over as masters of this section of the universe, and the sky is, literally, the limit. It could be that this stage has already been reached outside of our planet, but there is nothing yet to show for it, as far as we can see.

Where does all this leave us? Was the universe "meant" to become aware of itself? Would an incredibly large universe, made up entirely of dead matter, have made any sense at all? But is there any law that says that existence should make sense?

Maybe I should concentrate on football, and things would really start to make sense, and so would I…