02 Aug, 2007 I Run
I go running relatively early each and every morning if at all possible. Blessed with good health throughout my life to date, I began exercising regularly around ’94 when I wanted to get in shape for an up and coming world tour.
Performing with Simple Minds demands that I must be full of the right kind of energy to give my best. Unfortunately for me with only two or three months to go before the start of the then planned tour I had to seriously consider the fact that I was simply not fit. That was a humbling experience.
A decision was instantly made that I really needed to swing into action and “get myself moving” again, especially if I wanted to continue giving the type of energetic performances that our live reputation relied on, and soon after Charlie Burchill introduced me to his then Dublin based fitness trainer. From then mornings that began with training sessions alongside Charlie instantly became a great way to start the day and thankfully after a couple of months involving a quite intensive regime I was more than ready for touring – complete with a new found fitness!
Obviously I had taken the smart decision for me in making regular exercise an essential part of my life and it has been so ever since. Unlike Charlie and some of the other guys who play with Simple Minds, I am no longer one for gymnasiums, preferring to be out in the open.
Such places are not always easy to find on a concert tour that focuses on venues and hotels that are usually city centre based. That said I don’t exercise that much during an actual tour, as quite frankly the performance is exercise enough. No, the key is do much exercise during those months when I am not performing on stage and doing so keeps the stamina up, the lungs working and the kilos off. (Sometimes!) More than that I find that exercising gives a real boost to my morale and goes along way in keeping my mind in a more positive mode.
Somehow it seems that running suits me perfectly, ironically so especially when for some reason I never thought that it would. It surprises me even more that this year in particular I have reached some kind of plateau where I can run easily for an hour plus each day without even exerting that much effort. Sorry if that seems like a boast, it is not at all. It merely makes me wonder again especially as when I began running I remember struggling to make fifteen continuous minutes even!
Amazingly the hour passes rapidly, seemingly more like twenty minutes or so, as my mind like my legs goes on some journey. I find that I get a lot of thinking done in those sessions, problems get solved during the course and plans that were once frustrated somehow revealed as capable of falling into place etc. Puzzles become untangled and I also even get ideas for song lyrics flashing through my head as I make consecutive laps in the almost morning silence.
I now like run no matter the weather. Sometimes-in blinding sunlight and burning heat. I run also when the rain is splashing all over my skin. This year alone I have ran in such diverse situations, including through the rice fields and villages of Bali. The early morning air hung heavy with sweet incense, so pleasurable. The downside however was that I kept getting chased by scabby street dogs. Alternately I have as well spent a few mornings this year jogging through the housing estates of Glasgow. Taking of from the city centre hotel once again, and arriving without thinking back in the streets where I spent my childhood and my teenage years.
Best of all for me however was when I recently ran on consecutive mornings along the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne Australia. Equally amazing was jogging not that far from the port area of Osaka. I find ports and docklands fascinating places and recall great experiences spending hours running through the ports of Rotterdam, Copenhagen and Buenos Aires.
Currently I am back in Glasgow once again and enjoying a circuit that is only yards from where both Charlie and I went to school. Inevitably while running there so many previously forgotten memories come flooding back while similarly new ideas and emerging thoughts slot in to place.
They say it was a miracle when a holy man walked on water. Running makes me conscious of how great it is just to be healthy and alive. To be healthy and alive while even walking on this earth alone is miracle enough for me!
JK.