The Body Beautiful
A few days ago I was sat in the pub with my friends. It was the first really hot day of the year and because of this all the babes and the hunks were able to shed their winter cloaks and get their shapely, toned bodies out on display. Here was where all those hours down the gym would pay off, where they would get the return for sweating out the merest ripple of fat on their arses or hammering out those biceps until they were ready to burst. Here is where a stranger’s eyes would divert lustily towards them, affirming of all the hard work they had put in over the winter months. They were attractive! People fancied them. They had a power over the opposite sex and, more than likely, they would get a shag at the end of the night. They had succeeded in the one thing that is most important to all of us, whether we realize it or not.
Over the same dark, winter months, I have been running. Six days a week, fifty-sixty miles, rain, wind or shine. Okay, so these guys or girls had been down the gym for a few hours during this period, but compared to me their efforts were positively lethargic. I have been working almost every muscle in my body over and over, I have kept going to the point of being sick and I have kept going some more I have run a 10k, a half-marathon, a cross-country and a full marathon, stretching my body to its absolute limits, to points where very few human being have reached. I am comfortably fitter than any of the gorgeous physical specimens that surround me in the pub, and yet when I take my short off and sit proudly in my tight white vest no-one, not one person, takes a second look. I am one of the fittest men in the country, seriously, but does this make any difference? Does that girl walking passed raise her eyebrows, put her cheeks and eye my buff torso up and down? No she doesn’t. Neither does her ugly friend. Neither does anyone. They look straight towards the new doorman, smoking a cigarette by the gate.
Why do they do this? Because even though I exercise harder and longer than anyone else here, I am a runner. I don’t life weights, do chin-ups or go to water aerobics. I run. And no-one looks twice at a runner.
There is simple reasons for this. Running does not give you a beautiful body. Yes, it is the best form of exercise to lose weight, but once the weight has gone, that’s it. There’s nothing else – all the fuel has been spent pumping the blood around your legs; the rest of you – your arms, your chest, your arse – is left scrawny, skeletal and generally un-alluring. When I watched Baywatch I didn’t see any nine-stone men, and the women had bulges in places other than their calf muscles. No, running will not cause the opposite sex to flock your way and quicker when they see your tight quads. Not at all.
So as the next girl walks passed me and heads towards the bouncer with his tight t-shirt, a warm feeling flushes through my veins. I am not one of them. I do not make all this daily effort for the sole purpose of making myself look good when I step into the club. I am more interesting, it takes more to satisfy me than a good fuck with the town hotty. My goals are deeper than that.
Yes Mr Freud, I know, it probably is all about sex at the end of the day, but maybe my understanding of sexuality is different. I want people to fancy me because I have achieved things, because I have commitment, stamina, guts and enthusiasm, not because my body bulges out of a tight pair of jeans. By being a runner I am rejecting the traditional sexual mores, even though I am indulging in a similar practice as those in pursuit of the body-beautiful; I am like the anonymous artist, the rock star wearing a mask, the beautiful actor who will only play roles which make him ugly. Running doesn’t make me better looking, but I still like to think it makes me an attractive person, like the artist and the actor and the rock star, and those that can’t see this are not the kind of people I want to be with I don’t think.
When I look at the bouncer, standing by the door with a beautiful girl on his arm, I consider what it took for him to become this way. He has spent hours and hours pumping the muscles in his arms and his chest until he can do no more, until his brain switches off, and then pumping them some more anyway. This is anaerobic fitness. That’s how it works. If you do it right and do it well, then you shouldn’t be able to think – you should be exerting yourself to the point where that is all you are and all you are doing, where the rest of the world is shut off. Its exercise for amoebas.
As a long distance runner my way is different. Reaching optimum pace over optimum time engenders another feeling altogether – a Zen state, where rather than closing off your mind down to one simple thought, you open it in ways that you have never previously been able to. You become at one with the world around you. Your legs are moving, you are making effort, but you don’t notice. You are in a hyper-sensory state, and to achieve your best pace, you need to stay there as long as possible. Bodybuilders are doing something similar, but they can never open the door long enough to see what the runner can – the weights will always have to be dropped to the floor before their consciousness can catch up.
As a runner I may not be beautiful, you probably won’t look twice when you walk passed me on the street, but trust me, I have inner beauty like most other people can only dream of. Look long enough and you will see it.
Over the same dark, winter months, I have been running. Six days a week, fifty-sixty miles, rain, wind or shine. Okay, so these guys or girls had been down the gym for a few hours during this period, but compared to me their efforts were positively lethargic. I have been working almost every muscle in my body over and over, I have kept going to the point of being sick and I have kept going some more I have run a 10k, a half-marathon, a cross-country and a full marathon, stretching my body to its absolute limits, to points where very few human being have reached. I am comfortably fitter than any of the gorgeous physical specimens that surround me in the pub, and yet when I take my short off and sit proudly in my tight white vest no-one, not one person, takes a second look. I am one of the fittest men in the country, seriously, but does this make any difference? Does that girl walking passed raise her eyebrows, put her cheeks and eye my buff torso up and down? No she doesn’t. Neither does her ugly friend. Neither does anyone. They look straight towards the new doorman, smoking a cigarette by the gate.
Why do they do this? Because even though I exercise harder and longer than anyone else here, I am a runner. I don’t life weights, do chin-ups or go to water aerobics. I run. And no-one looks twice at a runner.
There is simple reasons for this. Running does not give you a beautiful body. Yes, it is the best form of exercise to lose weight, but once the weight has gone, that’s it. There’s nothing else – all the fuel has been spent pumping the blood around your legs; the rest of you – your arms, your chest, your arse – is left scrawny, skeletal and generally un-alluring. When I watched Baywatch I didn’t see any nine-stone men, and the women had bulges in places other than their calf muscles. No, running will not cause the opposite sex to flock your way and quicker when they see your tight quads. Not at all.
So as the next girl walks passed me and heads towards the bouncer with his tight t-shirt, a warm feeling flushes through my veins. I am not one of them. I do not make all this daily effort for the sole purpose of making myself look good when I step into the club. I am more interesting, it takes more to satisfy me than a good fuck with the town hotty. My goals are deeper than that.
Yes Mr Freud, I know, it probably is all about sex at the end of the day, but maybe my understanding of sexuality is different. I want people to fancy me because I have achieved things, because I have commitment, stamina, guts and enthusiasm, not because my body bulges out of a tight pair of jeans. By being a runner I am rejecting the traditional sexual mores, even though I am indulging in a similar practice as those in pursuit of the body-beautiful; I am like the anonymous artist, the rock star wearing a mask, the beautiful actor who will only play roles which make him ugly. Running doesn’t make me better looking, but I still like to think it makes me an attractive person, like the artist and the actor and the rock star, and those that can’t see this are not the kind of people I want to be with I don’t think.
When I look at the bouncer, standing by the door with a beautiful girl on his arm, I consider what it took for him to become this way. He has spent hours and hours pumping the muscles in his arms and his chest until he can do no more, until his brain switches off, and then pumping them some more anyway. This is anaerobic fitness. That’s how it works. If you do it right and do it well, then you shouldn’t be able to think – you should be exerting yourself to the point where that is all you are and all you are doing, where the rest of the world is shut off. Its exercise for amoebas.
As a long distance runner my way is different. Reaching optimum pace over optimum time engenders another feeling altogether – a Zen state, where rather than closing off your mind down to one simple thought, you open it in ways that you have never previously been able to. You become at one with the world around you. Your legs are moving, you are making effort, but you don’t notice. You are in a hyper-sensory state, and to achieve your best pace, you need to stay there as long as possible. Bodybuilders are doing something similar, but they can never open the door long enough to see what the runner can – the weights will always have to be dropped to the floor before their consciousness can catch up.
As a runner I may not be beautiful, you probably won’t look twice when you walk passed me on the street, but trust me, I have inner beauty like most other people can only dream of. Look long enough and you will see it.
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