Better in the long run

There is something about running that is exactly as Sillitoe’s Borstal boy described it. You finish and you are, as he puts it, “as happy as a dog with a tin tail”. You are physically, mentally and spiritually uplifted by the experience.

This feeling of complete freedom is a necessity for true healthiness in the world we occupy today. There has to be a time each week, or even each day, when the individual takes himself or herself into a space that is entirely their own. When you can take charge and feel invincible.

Of course, the beauty of running is that sense of a “high”. As one runner has put it, “On almost every run, and certainly the long ones, there are periods of contentment or reflection when one is on automatic pilot and the terrain goes past unnoticed.”

Can you ever get that complete sense of wellbeing, control and elation in a gym or while being yelled at by a fitness instructor at seven in the morning?

For a while there - around two to three decades ago - everyone, it seemed, was hooked on running. James Fixx wrote a best-selling book about it, but then promptly had a heart attack and died. The fun run movement started to fall away as people found more comfortable alternatives to slipping on their Nikes at six in the morning and stepping out into the cold and the dark.

It’s a pity really, because the loneliness of the long distance runner is a much more holistic and fulfilling experience than sweating it out on the treadmill.

Try giving up the gym membership for a while, and head to the beach, the mountains or even the streets of your neighbourhood, and simply run.

Being in the elements - rain, hail or shine - and running, beats the sanitised world of a gym any day.