I’m about six weeks into getting back to running. This has come as something of a surprise to me. Ever since my lungs took it into their heads to try killing me, running has been a distant dream. Occasionally I’d try, but either the constant gasping or the sudden muscle spasms tended to ruin the experience, and I gave up pretty quickly. Not this time though.

To put things into perspective, I used to enjoy running a lot. Cycling and swimming too, but running was something I could do at the drop of a hat, and I was good enough at it to keep on trying to do a little better. An hour and 33 minutes for the half marathon on my 43rd birthday being a high point that will stick with me. Partially because it felt for a long time that it would be my last one.

I first found it hard to run a few months later, in early 2019. Reaching for breaths that used to come easily. Fast forward to December and I learned the reason why, putting an end to running, potentially for good. As the drugs did their work, I felt better and tried now and then to run, even short little bursts, but it never stuck. Part of the reason for that was certainly fear: I knew I would never run the way I had done, but what if I couldn’t run at all? What if I learned for certain it was gone forever?

I can’t point to anything in particular that made me start again in April this year. Which is to say that there were a multitude of small things: dissatisfactions, desires, discomforts. Realising that I had better things to do with my life than lock part of it away because I was afraid of what I might see when I faced it head on. I didn’t have to try too hard, or run too far. Not at first anyway.

I tried to be as gentle as I could. Jogged as slow as I could bear to, walked when I needed to, went no further than 3km that first time out. Even so, I was gasping the whole way, my legs feeling like water. It was nothing like I remembered, yet the route was still the same. Down to the park, along the river, around the pond. And as bad as running felt, I felt good having run. (As a writer, it’s a familiar contradiction.)

The usual two-day aches and pains aside, nothing seemed broken. So I went out again. Tried to go a little further, started putting entries back in my Runkeeper log. Maybe I felt a little better, though I was still gasping and no faster. Next time, a little further still.

That’s been the story of the past month and a bit. Pushing on a little further, until I was under the bridge and into the next part of the park, around another pond. Building up until I reached 5km. Still haven’t managed a run without at least one walk, but I’ve come close. And I’m being patient. There are moments, a few kilometres into each run, where it doesn’t feel like a chore. Not like something I’m doing because I need to do something. Like the faintest ghost of how it used to feel.

Maybe that’s all it will ever be. Maybe I’ll manage no more than 5km runs for the rest of my span, or maybe I’ll stretch it a little further yet. Maybe to the end of the park, or up the hill to the canal. From there, I could turn home, or I could turn into the west and keep on running.

I suppose I’ll see when I get there.