Hunting and Running

For the last meal in 'The Omnivore's Dilemma' Michael Pollan cooks only what he has hunted or gathered. He has thus gone back to roots of our species, back further than 10,000 years of agriculture.

Although he only learnt to hunt to complete the structure of his book, once he was in the woods, tracking the wild pig, he became entranced and revelled in the sense of heightened awareness and attentiveness. As a modern metropolitan journalist he became almost embarrassed at the purple prose he wrote about his experience, yet he could not help it - he was recording what he felt.

The writer he relies on to support his attitude is Ortega y Gasset, whose 'Meditations on hunting' is a philosophical examination of the activity. In it he talks of the state of awareness of being fully part of nature and contrasts it with people who tramp through the landscape as tourists.

As a runner one of the places I feel most at home, find most pleasure, is in the woods. Although I have written about the attraction of this as feeling you are part of the landscape; on the Ortega y Gasset scale I must be counted as a tourist. The reason being that when running you can never give full attention to the world outside, there is always a part of you concentration on your breath, your legs, your ease, your effort. In some ways you blunder along, alerting all the wild animals to your presence with the noise you make.

Yet, and yet, I still think that all of us exerting ourselves on those trails are more than tourists. We are part of nature. We are using our legs in the way they were evolved to be used in woodland that has been here for who knows how long. Although we do not need the full attention of a hunter we need to be attentive to the path to avoid ruts, roots, slippy slopes and obstructions. We must be careful where we place our feet.

Sometimes the magical can happen. My favourite running moment has nothing to do with racing or achievement. It happened early one morning, when the mist was beginning to rise on what would be a fine day and I was running along a fairly broad grass pathway in the woods. To my left, ahead I saw a group of deer. I slowed and walked carefully as close as I could, stopped and then held the gaze of the deer for several seconds before it moved its head, turned around and loped off. For one moment there had been a connection and we had been two animals in the landscape.

When I am crashing about I might not be very agile or elegant but I am at least aware of being an animal, a participant in the woods not a spectator. Not really a tourist.

Victorian Virtues

Yesterday there was a Channel 4 programme on John Ruskin. I was really pleased about this and hope there will be some revival in interest in his work.

I previously mentioned that my favourite house in England is Brantwood, which used to be the home of John Ruskin. Partly this is because of the location (the view overlooking Coniston Water is sublime) but more importantly it is a celebration of the ideas of one of the great Victorian thinkers.

I can remember being told, in a school lesson 40 years ago, that the bookshelf of any educated artisan of the period would contain works by John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle. It was a strange throw away remark, just one sentence when a lesson went off-topic, but it has stayed with me all this time. Somehow it snagged a number of romantic ideas about idealism and seriousness, the way this could be embraced through all levels of society, and faith in the possibility of change, so that the quality of life could be improved for all (i.e. a better society was possible).

When I look out from his study, over the Water, to see the fells change colour and shape with changes in the light, my appreciation is heightened by all my internal associations. One of his great ideas was that you should learn through the close and direct observation of nature. But there is more to it than just standing and staring.

Strangely this brings me back to running and the justifications I make to myself for spending time on an activity where my only realistic aspiration is to be mediocre. Part of the fascination is a slightly Ruskinian idea of exertion making you feel part of the landscape - part of nature. It happens in two ways: you can observe quite closely and notice things that might otherwise have passed you by; also you are very aware of the workings of your body. External and internal nature. The balance varies with different types of run. When you are slow and easy there is more chance to look at the landscape, more a sense of being at peace with it. When it is more of a struggle you look inward and can notice nothing about you surroundings.

Today, for me, it was all inward looking. Having had a long break, eating too much and doing little exercise I have to go back to the start and build back up. In the mean time it feels like hard work. I will just have to content myself with the idea that hard work is also a Victorian virtue.