In Greek, pneuma. Air in motion, breath, wind. The hiccupping cry of a newborn, the waving of trees into patterns of light and shade. An explosion of air, forced into awareness by a starter’s gun at the beginning of a race. The rhythmic gasping of a runner, dodging roots on a forest trail or straining across a finish line. My father’s final labored sigh as the machines surrounding him clanked and hissed to a stop. Receding with death, slapped again into life, ending with the breath, beginning with the breath yet again. Starts, finishes, again and again, until the beginnings and endings are blurred.
Sitting and running share a focus on the breath, a practiced awareness of air entering and leaving our bodies. But the focus is often different. When running, we’re often more concerned with breathing as a performance factor – whether we’re getting enough oxygen to move faster, and how much faster or more efficiently our bodies can process it. Through sitting, we simply observe the breath for what it is, letting it come and go without adding or subtracting anything.
But there are moments when sitting practice and running practice combine to refocus on the breath in a very helpful way. During a race, when my mind is experiencing what ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes refers to as a “dark moment” – a low physical and mental ebb characterized by reduced physical performance and negative thoughts – I return to the breath.
As I run, and refocus on the breath entering and leaving my body, I realize I have forgotten my breathing. To become aware of it again is always like coming home. My pace slows a bit and becomes more regular. The focus shifts from the self-created drama in my head to my breathing, my body, the course and what is actually happening around me. It is rarely as dire as the epic drama my ego was staging in my head. I stand (and run) corrected and refreshed.
I haven’t saved myself from every dark moment during a race this way; sometimes the melodrama is just too hypnotizing, and sometimes the pain is very real. But I’ve managed to save myself from many of them and continue to finish – simply by returning to the breath, which, unlike the many acts in my ongoing personal melodrama, is always there, no beginning, no ending.
