1. On Running

When you talk about running, it is easy to think of Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. The sentence pattern “What I talk about when I talk about XX” has been widely quoted, which says something about the influence of the book.

I first finished reading it many years ago. Now, apart from the title, all I remember is that Murakami gets up very early every day, concentrates for a few hours, and that is enough to finish a whole day’s work.

In fact, I have tested this myself: when I get up early, my work efficiency really is very high. Getting up before dawn, my mind is especially clear, there are no other distractions, and I can get into a working state very quickly — the efficiency is even higher than at night. This way of working suits people who can arrange their own time and workload freely. On the other hand, getting up early means going to bed early, and for people today that is a challenge.

But I still get up early. As a child, my father would get up at six every day to open the shop; when I was at university, every weekend I had to spend more than an hour on the bus to attend classes at another school. Partly it was the influence of my family, and partly it was what my circumstances required — getting up early became a habit.

When I first started working, I would use the extra time in the morning to study for a while and pick up a bit more knowledge. Later, I went to bed very late, and gradually I stopped getting up so early in the morning, so naturally there was no time for anything else. Every day: get up, brush my teeth, take the shuttle bus to work, take the shuttle bus home, sleep. Time passed especially quickly, yet my memories did not grow.

This year, after the Spring Festival, the renovated park next to my residential compound opened. Inside the park there happened to be a plastic track, about 300 meters per lap, which made you eager to try it.

2. Keep Running

The last time I ran regularly was during my undergraduate years. Every other day I ran 3.2 km. Eight lanes, each lap a small goal, and the eight small goals together made up one running session. After running for a while, I strapped sandbags to my legs to increase the intensity of the training. Perhaps I pushed too hard in classes during the day, because after running at night and taking a shower, I would want to doze off as soon as I sat down in the library. Although I borrowed and read a lot of books there, I do not think I absorbed them well.

I kept this up for 2 to 3 years.

After I started working, I did not get off work early enough, so running at night was out of the question. Running in the morning is a good choice.

I know a few friends who are very keen on marathons — even for a half marathon, as long as they can get a place, they are overjoyed. My goals are not that high; I just hope to break a sweat and relax my body.

Now when I run, I never run for very long, and I never let myself get very tired. Running long means investing a lot of time; running until exhausted affects work. What I care about more is being able to keep it up every day, without it becoming a burden, treating running as a kind of recreation.

3. Running Meditation

Once your body gets into a rhythm while running, it starts moving mechanically. Left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand, one lap, two laps…, the limbs repeating a familiar set of motions with great proficiency.

Sometimes I focus on my breathing — inhale, exhale; sometimes I focus on my footsteps — one two, one two. When I run, I often lose track of time and do not care how long I have been running. I just set a marker to remind myself when it is time to stop. In the past, on the school track, since there were lanes, I would run lap after lap. Now, once a lot of sweat is on my forehead, I head home to shower.

In fact, meditation is also about concentrating attention on the breath and, through training, improving one’s own focus. Meditation and running can also be combined. The body is moving, the mind does not have to deal with daily affairs, and the space for thought is broader than usual.

When I ran at school, I did not have to think about where my next class was, what homework was still unfinished, or what activities I needed to attend. I only had to move my legs, and my head would be full of the books I had recently read. After finishing a book, I could only remember scattered fragments of knowledge, unable to connect the whole thread together. When running, those fragments of knowledge became raw material waiting to be processed.

After I started working, what I face are work goals and career development. In terms of the field and the time I invest, an individual leans toward the direction of their career. When running, I think about the recent important work items and then reflect on myself. If I have recently read a book, I also continue the earlier practice, trying to retell it in my own logic and think about where it fits in my work.

I think the most important thing about running is that it gives you a stretch of time to know and reflect on yourself. During that time, you can forget everything, as if examining your relationship with the world from a third person’s point of view.