I'm a woman

I'm a woman
Photos copyright Laurence Gouault
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Sunday 30 January 2011

An Ordinary Run, by Stevie Haston


my roommate
 Yesterday was fairly ordinary. An ordinary day in a boring week, or a boring day in an ordinary week, I don’t know or care. So just before dinner I put my shoes on and went out into the dark fog. I was just going out for my very mundane ‘there and back’ little run, my filler in run, ‘my better do something run’. And you know what, it was great! As soon as I was out of the flat, watching my breath blow out like a small horse in the chilly air, I knew it was going to be good. Within a few breaths and paces I was doing what I call slow ‘breath of fire’ breathing. Breath of fire, from Kundalini Yoga, I find hard, but occasional, when running or doing Denivelé, it really clicks. Anyway its uphill for 400 meters, round past a frozen river, then the cable car station, then the woods and pillowed slow on chalets and hillocks. It was dark and cold and crunchy underfoot, I kept my eyes peeled for the two foxes who live up that road, but didn’t see them. Mostly I concentrated on my breathing and felt prime. Wow if it was this easy all the time, my god, it was really running, not jogging. So at the turn around I normally concentrate on even slow safe pace, and instead I just flew home. 10 mn faster than normal, nice. 3 plates of cabbage soup later, my legs felt worked. It was a very nice ordinary run, and I stayed awake thinking about simple, lovely things, in a bemused, full kinda way. You don’t know what you got, till it’s gone, and it goes because you don’t look after it, and cherish it. Be warned. Look after the little but great things in life, like ‘breath of fire’, you are never as happy as the child playing.