Triple Knots
Run-commuting, note-taking and reaffirming identity.
I’ve done a bit of run-commuting this week. It feels a little eccentric - I run from home-home in Basingstoke to the station, then from Waterloo to work. I forgot to bring my official, serious running rucksack so I’m borrowing a drawstring bag from mum which I tie in three knots at my chest. On day one, I only did two knots, and over the course of the run it would loosen and start dancing around. This is not ideal if you’ve got a man plodding and huffing behind you, speeding up when you speed up, and you need to actually click into gear to get some peace. No worries though, I managed it fine. Because no, I would not simply sit back and let him overtake me, why would I do that? I imagined stopping and grandly sweeping my arm forth to allow him to pass, perhaps with a smile and a “please!” But this was more satisfying. Anyway, I’ve now mastered the Drawstring Bag Triple Knot.
On Tuesday, I wanted to run home as well as to work, but as I packed lightly for this week I don’t have a great deal of running kit to spare. I’m running more than I expected to, which after ten weeks of recovering from an ankle sprain feels really, really lovely. What a good problem to have. So at work, I rinsed through my sports bra and top in the shower, hoping they’d be dry again by 5pm. It was touch and go, to be honest. Above the desk I was a vision of professionalism. At my feet, I was readjusting a soggy sports bra to give it the best chance of drying beside the air con unit. Reader, it dried, and I enjoyed a bright evening jogging back across the playing fields that I spent so much time playing in as a child.
The run-commute is not just a good way of saving money (I found 70p on the ground, so I’m actually making money). It doesn’t just save my dad a trip to the station and back in the car. It’s not just a way of getting the miles in while saving/best using my time, or even getting my body back into something I recognise after a flabby, unfit ankle recovery. All of these things are true, but it’s also about identity. I’m having a hell of a week at work, to be honest, and sometimes I have to remember that it isn’t all that I am. While I’m sat at a desk on day three of six, wondering if any of it will ever end, feeling my skin turn grey in the stale air, I can stretch my restless legs out and touch upon the hem of my running shorts and remember the freedom of the run that morning. I can feel the association with something other than this, that vague rebellion, counter-culture, sitting on a train feeling a bit gross and a bit sweaty, before arriving at work, washing it all away and presenting as something more acceptable. Knowing I can do it all again later, counting down the hours.
I like for work to be the interlude, not the run. I like to base my travel around the run. To be at work on time ideally, yes, to be present, but it is a side note to being outside and running. Writing is my other rebellion. I keep my notebook beside me at my desk and in the same way I might stretch out a restless leg, I might make a note of an idea. I can refocus on the job at hand because I have reaffirmed who I really am. And you find me here, on Friday, typing up the notes I made one morning on the train. I had packed my notebook into the drawstring bag, fastened it at my chest with the triple knot, and held close to running and writing. The harder the job, the closer I cling. The tighter I tie those knots.
