A sauna is just an excuse to run to the sea

I got challenged this week trying to remember why I run around in circles so often - then a sauna saved the day

I’ve just finished reading To The Limit: The Meaning of Endurance From Mexico to the Himalayas by Michael Crawley. It’s a journey through the whys and wherefores of endurance sport (but mostly running). I won’t write a review about it here, but one moment in the book got stuck in my head this week. It was when he was writing about doing his first ultra marathon, in the Himalayas (as you do!), and he was making his way up a long, mountain climb. He writes:

On several occasions … I stop to let groups of women pass. Using a forehead strap, they carry enormous baskets of grass or rice and make their way cautiously down the hill in sandals … I can’t help wondering what these women make of me, sweating my way up this hill with my little backpack of water and rehydration salts, thousands of miles from home, for no discernible reason at all.

It’s that pay off at the end that got me, “for no discernible reason at all”. All week, before heading out for a run, as I tried to decide which circle to loop, the sheer pointlessness of it loomed large. I could easily skip this run, I thought. Nothing would happen. No one would care. I’d get an extra hour or so to do something useful.