Mark English: the Donegal runner has just endured the kindest and cruellest of seasons in one go. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything only happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.”
Paul Bowles didn’t exactly have running in mind when he wrote that epilogue in The Sheltering Sky, his classic novel of existential despair, but maybe it’s the backdrop to all our lives.
Something about this time of year, and especially Wednesday’s harvest moon, also brings those words to life. For most runners, autumn is the season of hope and renewal. Not spring. It’s the time to once again delve into that seemingly inexhaustible well, possibly realising it might be for the last time. For the elite runner of a certain age, that must ring true.
Often their hardest decision is knowing when to retire. Some are lucky to end their career on a high.
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