Photo by Phil Toms
At 11am on September 5th 2015, I ran along a 250 metre pedestrian street in Kuopio, Finland. I kept going until 1.20pm on Sunday 6th September.
I ran for 26.2 hours, in silence.
People kindly came to sit and watch me, support me, join me in silence and run with me.
Language enables us to constrain, reason and order life.
Language encourages us to make life fit us.
But sometimes, life just doesn't fit, events happen that remind us that the very nature of our lives is unstructured, incomprehensible, beyond words.
Running allows us to access that very area of life that exists beyond reason, beyond sense. It provides the route past language, it allows us to just 'be'.
Running shows us that life is an experience to be felt, not always to be understood, it allows us to experience life as it is, without borders of reason.
If you run fast enough, language becomes impossible: the body cannot breathe, move and speak all at once.
If you run far enough, language blurs into the landscape: you blur into the landscape.
There is a transcendence.
It could be a means of escape.
It could be a means of protest.
It might not be beautiful.
This is the silent run.
* Please go to the BLOG section for more information, context, thoughts, meanderings and ramblings.
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