Spiridon n°1 - April 1972 - Click and download!
EDITORIAL
They talk with their bare legs and arms...
Running, a direct extension of walking, is the most natural physical activity that can be found! No accessory, no artifice: the man, on the run, is alone with his body, his soul and his spirit. No other situation manages to free him more surely from daily trivialities, contingencies, burdens of all kinds. For a few hours, he is free and he remakes the world!
The enjoyment is much greater for him than that known to the horse rider or the motor racer, because it does not come to him from a foreign body which, sooner or later, can escape the control of his will. His musculoskeletal system, his vehicle, he not only hears it, not only does he feel it, but he also lives it intensely, to the accelerated rhythm of his heart. Each of his. movements, each of his reactions, he "thinks" them in his flesh. Stride after stride, he accompanies the evolution of the blister that forms under his foot; he foresaw with anguish the tendonitis which will keep him silent for months; he follows the cramp which rises slowly in the calf and the point which awakens on the side, at the height of the liver. When the course is prolonged and the sun darts its rays on the marathon route, he is surprised by the tingling that stiffens his arms and the shivers that foam his skin. All this, no one but him knows. It's his business! It is his fear and his hope, his suffering and his pleasure; it is his loneliness!
Over the miles, the runner rediscovers what man has most precious: the awareness of unity, in which soul, body and spirit merge! No one better than him, at the moment, manages to dominate matter more surely, and often, he thus gives back to poetry what it lacks in spontaneity, to philosophy what it lacks in truth!
And deep within these elements purrs the passion that makes life worth living! During these hours when the runner goes to the end of the world, under the haggard eyes of "normal" people, humanity sleeps, eats and kills! Him, with each supplely balanced step, he feels the earth rise in his veins and his movement resembles a prayer; the more he advances, the more his confidence, a moment wavering, strengthens! He talks with his bare legs and arms! Sweat covers her face with transparent pearls; his eyes look straight ahead...
The effort lights a little fire in the pit of his stomach, yet it is not a suffering like the others: this one, he maintains it, he learns it, he forms it. But the circle is complete. The runner finds his clothes loaded with complacency, accommodation and compromise!
"As soon as he is in his shirt, says Jean Prévot, he feels modesty taking hold of him and he hides behind the foliage. When his clothes have taken hold of his neck, under his arms, at the waist, he sets off on the road pressing on his heels like a clothed man. His body becomes mute again and his lips are ready for the words! ".
Do you understand why the "crazy people" of running are multiplying and carry in their eyes a certain flame that makes them recognize themselves in the street? It's not just for health!
Yves Jeannotat