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Why I Run - Why do I run? Why indeed.

Nestor Lewlyckyj
Club: Phoenix, Montreal

I've thought about it over the last 2 or 3 weeks, and I went through several versions of my reasons but none seemed complete, none seemed to get at the core of it. I needed to distill it to its roots. But it came to me slowly but surely, last Saturday, during the long run. It was a few degrees on the good side of zero, foggy, raining lightly, no wind, Dennis and I running alone on the quite stretch around the Island. Dennis trying to break 44 minutes on the 10K and I trying to recover from chasing him for 8k before catching up. At that moment, when Denis hit his mark, I understood why I run.
 
Bob Dylan was asked, when he embraced the electric guitar and turned his back on pure acoustics "Why don't you want to write and play protest songs anymore?" And he answered, indignantly and with anger "Every song I write and sing is a protest song, and always will be!"
 
I run to protest. I run to express my anger and rage. I run to protest sloth. I run to protest gluttony. I run to protest global warming. I run to protest laziness. I run to protest "progress". I run to protest inhumanity and selfishness. I run to protest greed and avarice. I run to protest ignorance. I run to protest consumption. I run to protest deforestation and general neglect of our environment and its riches. I run to protest ageing. I run to protest sickness and disease. I run to protest death and mortality.
 
Running is simple and pure. It takes us back to our roots. What can be simpler? Buy a pair of shoes, some clothes and you can run. In its simplest form, without tools and gadgets, running is the simplest exercise we can do, and probably the oldest. Its a way, for me, to connect with the Earth, and everything that is natural and good in it. Running teaches me humility, reminds me of my limits, guides me to greater heights. Running brings me in contact with other people who run, and whatever their reasons for running, I feel good running with them. Runners are innately good people. There is a kindred spirit there. I have enjoyed meeting every runner at Phoenix Runners because they are there for the same reason I am there. And even though they may not know it yet, they run to protest too.
 
I love running on Ile Bizzard with the crew. I especially love running in the Eastern Townships where we have a cottage. I run on mountain dirt roads which give new meaning to "hill repeats". But to run out there, with the trees and the sun, the dry autumn leaves crunching under my shoes, the smells of the Earth in all its glory and, sometimes, in its fierceness, I feel complete. I am truly content. And I am able to forget, if only for an hour or two, how our Earth is quietly suffering.
 
In the words of Dylan Thomas (the OTHER Dylan)
 
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 
Every run I run is a protest run and always will be.
 
And I will not go gentle into that good night.

Nestor Lewyckyj