Using music and meditation to run 14km

A colleague asked once what music I listen to while running. “Sigur Ros, recently,” was the answer and she looked at me like I said I put beer in my coffee (which I would probably do because coffee is disgusting). But I get it – you hear they’re heaps in movies and TV but it wouldn’t really work in Rocky. Works for me though, sometimes.

Maybe I use music and/or run differently to others. I love running because it forces me to clear my often overactive mind. Music is not the fuel, it’s what blows out all the clutter so I don’t waste energy. I’ll listen to whatever sounds tap into whatever thoughts and feelings I’m carrying at the time; it helps to embrace and process that energy but let go of actual thoughts. Basically, when it works, it’s meditation.

Organisers of big fun runs seem to think pumping out trance music (I don’t even know/care if that’s the right label) through large speakers at the starting line gets runners ‘in the mood’. These aren’t rave parties; I want to clear my head, not get off it. I find running quite an insular, personal experience.

So it is as I stand in the Arts Centre forecourt at 7.30am on Sunday 17 November, 2013, as the sun slowly warms Melbourne, waiting for the 8am start of the 14km City2Sea. The night before I curated a playlist, 1:23:06 in length, hoping not to need the last couple of tracks.

Indeed, the final song, ‘Blue Order/New Monday’, was selected for the post-run high, though it feels appropriate to cue it up now as I mentally prepare, and use its mesmerising drifts to try and drown out the noise pollution. I feel good about this run on this rare perfect spring-2013 morning; I just wish they’d shut up their stupid beats.

Breaking into a stride as I crossed the start line, I flick to The National’s ‘Terrible Love’ – the song I’ve started every run with since I recently got back into it recently. It opens with a pending sense of dramatic purpose you can use to feel as though you’re taking on a meaningful challenge, and will kick its arse. And there’s something in the way it warms up and hits stride that perfectly complements and drives my mental process as I get going on a run.

I started in a good position, at the back of the first group – special treatment for running on behalf of a charity (work roped me into all this four weeks earlier). Having someone who runs marginally quicker than you want to, that you can mentally lasso, is great for maintaining a soft focus, kind of like a mobile drishti, if yogis would let me use the word in such a way. I also love working through the pack in these runs, while ignoring anyone passing me.

‘Feel It’ is the perfect song in that zone. Repetitive and rhythmic in a way that seeps into you, with a ‘fuck it’ edge that helps me unshackle weighty thoughts. As I pass 2km towards its end I realise that, just quietly, at just under ten minutes for what usually takes about eleven I’m off to a damn strong start.

Yeah, I timed the playlist the night before to keep an idea of how I was tracking without being too distracted by the clock. For a while I stopped timing my runs, telling myself I didn’t care, that it was all about health and headspace. But it actually helps. I’m a little competitive and want to run well, so what? Feelings are great, but it’s nice to have a measurable thing too. And although (because?) I’m not obsessed by it, it’s sort of like a mental drishti during the tedium of longer runs that keeps attention away from particularly tiresome thoughts, like ‘why run when I could walk?’

After the psychedelic dirge of ‘Doused’, ‘It Happened Today’ brings an uplifting mood change. I smile as I look ahead at the sea of sun-soaked heads bobbing up and down along St Kilda Road. Great choice. Minimal, rhyming and rhythmic lyrics followed by an ‘outro’ of exalted wailing that lasts more than half the song. From about 2:05 minutes onward it sounds like what flying must feel like. Three-and-a-half kilometres in, running with focus, energy and a smile, I feel at least like I was cruising.

‘Cherokee’ has a bit of a bloody-minded attitude that I like, which works well enough as I start to sweat and get some messages from the body that it wouldn’t mind a seat.

Then ‘Rival’, one of several songs on this list inspired by a best mate who ‘gets’ running, and tapped me on the shoulder two nights earlier as we watched Black Rebel Motorcycle Club perform it live and said “Great running song”. I thought of him – the guy who recently did the one thing I am *pretty sure* I never will: run a marathon – as it burst into my head. He’s the kind of rival that inspires me to push myself rather than beat him. We almost never run together, but talk running regularly.

Then ‘Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)’ and ‘It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)’. ‘It’s Never Over’ is basically my current favourite song so I knew would be a good distraction and provide some much needed endorphins around the 6-8km mark. They seem to work as a pair and I like them together, so ‘Awful Sound’ got a spot too.

Approaching the 8km flags, as ‘It’s Never Over’ eases into its soft final minute or so, a truly awful sound invades my earspace. A few ‘young people’ in red shirts are grooving and ‘woo-hoo’ing by a DJ set up with four big, red, ugly letters spelling out ‘N O V A’. Disgusted, I put fingers to my ears as I pass.

‘I Remember A Time When Once You Used To Love Me’ (instrumental, soaring and one I haven’t listened to for a while) doesn’t work as well as hoped. Perhaps it is just badly placed, but it isn’t what I need as things get tough.

‘Life Is Hard’ (another new favourite) on the other hand, comes in perfectly for that point just past halfway where you feel the struggle but can’t yet look to the finish line. “The mind wants to give up before the body does,” I remember a yoga teacher saying. If the cries of “Come, celebrate! Life is hard!” can’t get me in the frame of mind to relish smashing through those mental barriers then nothing will.

Despite the fatigue, I’m pretty happy with myself by the time ‘Dog Days Are Over’ starts, crossing the 10km line about a minute in, having aimed to be get there by the time it finished. It has great energy and is troublesome when driving because I always want to clap.

I don’t feel like clapping. The legs are a pounding the ground a little heavier, the arms need relief from being held up in ‘runners position’ for 50 minutes, my body is running out of fuel and I know I have four kilometres to go. Still, I also know I will finish, it’s just a matter of dealing with the tired discomfort. I’m breathing well, that’s something.

A kid is on the side of the road holding out his hand for high fives. I want to, I really do, but I don’t have it in me to change my line. Look straight ahead, run straight ahead, breathe, move the legs, feel it, use it.

‘Oceanographer’s Choice’ has a wonderfully defiant sound, but neither it nor the beautiful, long, instrumental psychedelic rock trip ‘You Look Great When I’m Fucked Up’ are working for me.

Perhaps nothing would have for the 11-13km section. Maybe I need no music at all when all energy is going into just moving the legs and breathing. Looking sideways to check the position of other runners is somewhat nauseating and thinking is like lifting weights with ‘jelly arms’ (which is actually great for rewiring an anxiety/OCD-prone brain).

The finish line is firmly in mind during the last three kilometres. Those fucking teases make us run past it, up Beaconsfield Parade for about a kilometre-and-a-half, before turning back. Streams of people are across the road heading for home and I just want to see where we turn around.

By the time I’m on the other side, coming past the 13km flags, the rousing intro of ‘Rise’ from The Dark Knight Rises soundrack gives me a burst of enthusiasm, before it quickly lulls into long, sombre strains and I fall back into nausea, remembering there are still several hundred metres to run.

I ease off a little until we finally hit the beautiful final turn for home. It’s not the perfect song for the last dash, but I barely hear it; my drishti now is a big red inflated arch and everything goes into running at it. I may not be able to beat my mind for 14km but I know I can beat it for 100m, bursting into a hard run and obliterating everything in my head that’s been urging me to stop and bloody well sit down. It hurts but it will be over in 50, 40, 30, 10 metres, and then gives way to a rush of endorphins, a fantastic feeling, with a mind as free and energised as my body is exhausted.

No one pays me any interest. It’s just me and the Dark Knight Rises soundtrack as I walk and breathe deeply. Shit I love that music. I feel like I’ve accomplished something pretty cool, or defeated bad guys or something. At least in my own body and mind.

‘Sometimes’ comes on as I walk into St Kilda’s Crimmins Reserve and knock back a cup of Gatorade followed by some water. It made the list because it’s an awesome ‘struggle-town’ song, but I’m not really into it today for whatever reason, and pay it little attention.

People are filling the lawns of the reserve, bathed in sunshine, looking out to the sea. They give us medals and a copy of The Age, both of which I find a bit silly. I put the medal in my pocket and indulge in the feeling of accomplishment, having run better than ever before. I think about when, a few years ago, I had neither the physical, nor mental capacity to run more than 2km.

Finding shade under a palm tree, I lie down in reclining bound-ankle pose, looking up at the clear blue sky and let ‘Blue Order/New Monday’ wash over me again. They’re playing that goddamn stupid music here as well, but I close my eyes and tune it out, letting this great feeling just soak in. Happy, calm, content.

Aware that I may seem like an entitled man taking up space and ‘airing’ his groin, I place The Age strategically and care nothing further about it.

Then, after the song finishes, I stand up and tweet my result (which shocked me), with the hashtag ‘#IDGAFbrag’, something like an achievement selfie. And suddenly I’m reconnected to the ‘real’ world, but I feel much better in it than I did about an hour and a half ago.

City2Sea 2013 playlist

The silver linings of an Abbott Government … desperate thoughts in difficult times

Warning: may irritate some ALP voters I like on Twitter. Hopefully not, but possibly.

So it’s come to this.

When the soothingly thoughtful and intelligent Waleed Aly becomes the focus of criticism from ALP apologists it’s time to check the blinkers.

Remember the good old days of protesting bad government policy without fear of giving the opposition a free kick?

Aly wrote what was, in my opinion, a fantastic piece (and to be fair, it seems there was far more praise than criticism) discussing the real problems Labor face – you know, those that actually underlie the bad polls and infighting. It wasn’t the policy analysis we need, but it was a broad look at ALP policy and ideology and, despite the usually measured Bernard Keane attacking him, summarising it as “Waleed Aly joining Fairfax’s new ‘all leadership speculation, all the time’ format,” the ‘L’ word was only used once and to actually make a point of stating that the issues he was addressing were “not about incompetent leadership”.

Yet the reaction from many people on Twitter was an elbow-jerk finger pointing at the Coalition, or to take up Aly’s overarching theme of narrative, which some are now pushing as a dismissive running joke, to avoid what he was really talking about.

The defensiveness was cringeworthy as rusted on some rusted on ALP voters could not even for a minute take a moment to accept this may be a legitimate arguement and that perhaps there is something wrong with the party.

Apparently it’s all about mainstream media hatred of Julia Gillard and the ALP. Reality check – The ALP stink. Just not quite as bad as the other lot. But that’s no reason to defend them.

The progressive party we need, or the one we deserve?

They deserve to, and must, be called on it if they are going to be the progressive party we actually deserve. Or maybe they are the progressive party we deserve, but they are not the one we need right now – though I hate to compare my beloved Batman with them, they’re more like Two-Face at the moment.

We need a major progressive party that treats asylum seekers with dignity, affords them basic human rights and doesn’t use them as a political football. One that listens to Indigenous communities rather than continuing oppressive Howard-era policies that aren’t working. One that keeps its commitment to stand up to the gaming industry and deliver real reform, like they did the tobacco industry. One that doesn’t dance along to the conservative tune of ‘surplus, surplus, surplus whatever it takes’, because we know that’s not a healthy or realistic attitude (and, jeebus, why not use reality against the Coalition??). One that treats all people equally, especially when it’s what the majority of the people and that party want.

Yes, they have done some very good things in the past three years and performed quite well in some difficult circumstances, and no person or party or government is perfect, but there is so much to abhore about this lot right now, in their policy and how the conduct themselves. Even one of the Prime Minister’s most memorable moments, that misogyny speech, came while the government cut welfare to single parents (many being women).

Warranted as some of it has been, much of the angry criticism of the mainstream media’s trivial obsession with polls and leadership over policy seems to have itself become a trivial obsession with being the victim and taking a ‘whatever it takes’ approach to beating Tony Abbott rather than thinking broadly about policy.

Which leads me to my other moment of utter disillusionment with the media, politicians and punters who pretend to want to discuss issues over party politics. On Tuesday it was (minimally) reported that children in detention – in the care of our government – as young as nine years old have been self-harming.

A nine-year old overdosed on painkillers, saying he was “going crazy”, a ten year old cut his forearms, a 17 year old tried to hang himself. And 23 other cases between August 2010 and November 2011.

This is outrageous and surely a perfect opportunity for a biased media to sink the boot in? Yet there was much silence from the mainstream media and party aligned tweeters alike. Perhaps because both sides are culpable and the media has played a major role in perpetrating disgraceful myths and perceptions. But it is the government that is ultimately responsible for their wellbeing. And all the while, some people who have been most vocally banging on about #Ashbygate and the media’s silence and unfair treatment, themselves had nothing to say about children self-harming in detention. Didn’t suit the politics.

In the end many calls of bias from all sides aren’t calls for better quality journalism or neutrality, but demands for a their team to be given a “fairer run”. Like using the free kick count in an AFL match to judge the quality of umpiring, it wholly dismisses the reality of events, and the actions, values and discipline of either side.

And now with bickering between the ALP and the Greens and everything turning to shit I begin to wonder … is an ALP loss- even a little whalloping – perhaps what we need? I find myself starting to think of the benefits of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, perhaps out of sheer necessity. Maybe a term – just one if possible – of Prime Minister Abbott would actually be good for us in the long-run. Maybe?

Silver linings of … PM Abbott  (*shudder*)

I’ve only in the past week resigned myself to the fact the Coalition will likely win. And I’m not comfortable with it. But there are opportunities there, friends! We progressives could properly rally around a common enemy and do what we do best without feeling the need to defend a less-than-perfect government – protest! Yes there would be bad outcomes, but maybe it would offer an opportunity to refocus on drawing attention to our issues like our appalling human rights record of the last decade without holding back for fear of handing the opposition a free point (because they are so much better, right?!) and really, truly, deeply talk about issues again. Wasn’t it more fun when we all hated Prime Minister Howard??

I desperately want the ALP to be better than what it is. I want to want to vote for them – well preference them, Adam Bandt will likely get my primary vote – not just put them down as the least bad option. My sense of Aly’s piece was that he feels the same. I wasn’t a kicking for the sake of it, it was an plea for better progressive representatives. I think he, like me, wants to be able to choose a party to govern that inspires, not the lesser evil. Not that I can speak on his behalf.

Frankly, the ALP deserve to be beaten in the election. They are not a party I want running my country. The problem we have, of course, is that the alternative is fundamentally evil. For the first time I understand people who don’t wish to vote. “If you don’t vote you can’t complain about the elected government,” they say. Well sure you can if you think both options suck. (This is not an argument against our system of compulsory attendance, which I love).

Waleed Aly hit many nails on their heads. I don’t want to see Prime Minister Abbott; I could live with Prime Minister Turnbull if the party reflected his views rather than vice-versa, but that won’t happen;but I don’t particularly want to see this government limp on into another term the way it’s going and with policies I can’t accept. Perhaps we’ll be better off in the long run if they cop a harsh lesson and come out a better party. I’m sure it will just lead to more infighting, recriminations, speculations, deals and revenge though.

If the Coalition win without control of the Senate hopefully Abbott’s inane blood pledge to repeal the price on carbon will begin his unraveling  from day one. It’s the kind of easy story the media love, the public don’t hate it anymore and I can’t see a Double Dissolution helping him in any way in such circumstances.

What we need is to get back to be able to talk about ideas and issues in a way that is not constrained by which party you support. It’s just as important to hold the party you support to account publicly.

But if you treat this like sport – as many of us constantly criticise the media for doing – and merely fight the ‘other team’, if you’re response to any criticism of your side of politics is “but what about them?!”, you’re missing the point and holding back the progressive cause.

Some ALP voters need to take a cold shower, focus less on crying out for critique of Tony Abbott – it will come – and realise that the ALP really do need to be much better as a party and progressives. And hey, that might just turn things around.

Why so serious about Batman?

Indulge me, while I ponder my obsession with a character that dresses up like a bat.

It seems a little childish, but I actively embrace my inner child – I keep it locked up so it doesn’t escape. And I love Batman.

Have done for 20 years, inheriting my eldest brother’s fanatacism around the time of the Tim Burton movie – which finally returned the character to his natural habitat of darkness – and the return to TV of the campy, colourful Adam West series, which was more age-appropriate for me at the time. But everyone was jumping on the Bat-wagon in the early ’90s until Burton and Joel Schumacher produced increasingly silly films. But my fascination with the character himself endured.

It seems ridiculous to be drawn to a a comic character. I’m not even a comic geek. I don’t like many non-Batman superhero films.

But Batman’s not really a ‘super’ hero, is he? I always liked him best of the lot because he’s an ordinary guy. He didn’t come from another planet with super-powers, wasn’t a nerdy kid bitten by a radioactive spider, or a nerdy scientist who somehow survived a radioactive blast or some other ordinary/arbitary person-turned-instant-superhero/villain by some kind of freak event. In Batman’s world radiation is bad for you.

Then Christopher Nolan came along. Batman Begins smashed my previous imaginings of what the character could be.

He did something with the characters, and their world, no one had ever dared with a comic adaption on-screen. He took them seriously and grounded it in reality. I think ‘gritty’ is the word commonly used.

Finally I could legitimately appreciate the character as a relatively mature adult. Relative, of course, to my maturity as a child.

Unlike many other comic heroes and villains, Batman is an organic persona, born of tortured but determined mind, trying to reconcile his demons and fix things in a corrupt, crumbling world (well, city). He’s a deeply flawed hero and not always one to be admired. Indeed, he has many shades of grey. He is more.

Nolan explored the psychology of Bruce Wayne. I’m surprised no one had really done it before. There’s plenty to work with – the guy has issues. He’s not a clean hero (or ‘white knight’), he’s conflicted and complicated. But that makes him one that’s easier to relate to (aside from the whole vigilante thing), right?

Nolan even took the time to necessarily explain the some of the generally sillier elements – like the cape, the ears, where he gets his wonderful toys and why someone might dress up like a bat and become a vigilante in the first place.

Threats and adversaries in Nolan’s trilogy don’t coincidentally pop up in the same town and the same time – due to exposure with radiation or falling into a vat of chemicals – they are closely tied to Batman’s own story, feeding off each other with a complex and fascinating mutual causality.

All of this allowed the movies to explore real-world questions of justice (vs revenge), morality, violence, corruption, and the ripple effect of Batman’s very presence. Nolan delved into broader themes like fear, duality, chaos, socioeconomics, social order and politics. He posed questions like what it takes for people to abandon civility, how easily that might fall apart in an age where fear is everywhere, and whether the not being afraid of death is a strength or a weakness, just to name a few.

The discussion of escalation at the end of Batman Begins was beautifully pertinent to the politics of our world, as well as an example of how Nolan wanted to explore the grey areas of the character. He’s the hero, no doubt, but not without complication.

The world’s just not that simple, even if the a lot of people want it to be, but maybe that’s why we get so many dumb films from Hollywood and an intelligent blockbuster is so rare. ‘Ambiguity’ is a dirty word in Hollywood these days.

Lots of the criticism, particularly of The Dark Knight Rises is of the various characters ‘speechifying’, but the dialogue in the film – while not always perfectly written – was critical to the exploration of those themes and character development.

The proof of how strong Nolan’s story is, how rich the films are with layers and thought-provoking questions, is in how much has been written about them.

Even serious conservative commentators got on board, although I think they completely missed the point. Andrew Bolt claimed the interrogation scene (one of the trilogy’s best) from The Dark Knight, and the film as a whole was a supportive nod to George. W. Bush’s ‘War on Terror’. I read the scene in the opposite way – torture is futile, Batman has “nothing to do with all your strength”, and he loses this one despite his aggression. It’s actually my favourite scene of all three movies and has so much going on and is so well written, that it’s sad seeing it cherry-picked, and so badly.

Again recently, upon viewing TDKR, Bolt was one of many conservatives – and even some concerned progressives – to taint Batman with the dirty brush of hasty misunderstanding, claiming TDKR was an anti-‘Occupy’, among other things (some on the left called it pro-facist!). Aside from the fact the script was written long before the Occupy movement, you only need to listen to realise that the leader of Gotham’s ‘revolution’, Bane, actually has no interest in revolution. He’s using it as a ruse to rally people and cause chaos before destroying the city. It’s the social inequities and political injustices that allow him to do so, by plying the gaps in society. What does that say about conservative values, Mr Bolt?

I don’t know Nolan’s politics, but, if anything, I read the movies as being critical of Republican-style conservatism in many ways.

After all, the hero of the film has a blatant ‘no guns’ policy (other than on his vehicles) and his main virtue is his explicit refusal to kill. He may be part of the ‘1%’, but he seems pretty ambivalent towards his wealth, other that using it to help others. Brooding as he is, Batman is an idealist with an unshakable belief in the people; he’s a lone rebel trying to take down the corrupt elements of the city. A brooding, rebellious idealist – what more do you want?!

I could go on about for ages about the themes and interpretations, so I won’t – there are plenty of articles arguing all sorts of angles online already and I don’t need to say more about that. But, in the end, I don’t think Nolan was making any specific statements (especially political). Rather, like most good art, the films merely pose some deep and pertinent questions.

And any film that affects you so much they leaves you reading, talking and contemplating their world, characters and meanings for a few days – like all three did me, and I’m writing this almost two weeks after seeing TDKR, so… – is likely to endure regardless of box office takings.

That is, basically, why I love these films so so much. That and I think Batman is pretty cool, and I’ll always appreciate a dark, brooding hero fighting for the everyman/woman. I also kinda like Catwoman.

So, just as Joel Schumacher killed off the initial Batman movie franchise with the horrendous Batman & Robin, Nolan has pretty much ruined the two I did still like – Burton’s Batman and Schumacher’s Batman Forever. They are still good films for what they are (simple fun) – Batman in particular – but, to the disgust of a few Bat-friends, I am going to struggle to appreciate this character now without the depth and story Nolan gave us. Batman is more, and I just can’t watch them without wanting that now.

Nolan also – to my knowledge – has provided the first comic book adaption with an actual ending, which must have irked the studio, but it’s just another thing about the man to admire. It’s all about the story.

It still feels a bit silly talking about Batman like this, but I don’t care. These three films are visually stunning, thought-provoking, thrilling, and explore intriguing characters and themes through a fantastic story from start to finish. And I’m going to come back to them many times over the years.

Yes, I am a Bat-geek.

But maybe I’m taking this all too seriously…