Spiridon n°1 - April 1972
EDITORIAL
They speak with their bare legs and arms...
Running, a direct extension of walking, is the most natural physical activity there is! No accessories, no artifice: when running, a person is alone with their body, their soul, and their spirit. No other situation succeeds in freeing them more surely from daily trivialities, contingencies, and burdens of all kinds. For a few hours, they are free and they remake the world!
The pleasure is much greater for him than that experienced by the horseman or the racing driver, because it does not come from a foreign body that, sooner or later, can escape the control of his will. His locomotor system, his vehicle, he not only hears it, not only feels it, but also experiences it intensely, to the accelerated rhythm of his heart. Each of its movements, each of its reactions, he "thinks" them in his flesh. Stride after stride, he follows the development of the blister that forms under his foot; he anxiously senses the tendonitis that will silence him for months; he follows the cramp that slowly rises in the calf and the point that awakens on the side, at the level of the liver. When the course is prolonged and the sun shines its rays on the marathon route, he is surprised by the tingling that stiffens his arms and the shivers that run through his skin. All this, no one but he knows. It is his business! It is his fear and his hope, his suffering and his pleasure; it is his solitude!
As the kilometers pass, the runner rediscovers what is most precious to man: the awareness of unity, in which soul, body and spirit merge! No one better than him, at this 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 ends of the earth, under the haggard gaze of "normal" people, humanity sleeps, eats and kills! He, with each smoothly swung step, feels the earth rise in his veins and his movement resembles a prayer; the further he advances, the more his confidence, momentarily wavering, strengthens! He speaks with his bare legs and arms! Sweat covers his face in transparent beads; his eyes look straight ahead...
The effort lights a small fire in the pit of his stomach, yet it's not a suffering like any other: this one he maintains, he learns, he trains himself in. But the circle is complete. The runner finds his clothes laden with complacency, accommodation, and compromise!
"As soon as he is in his shirt," says Jean Prévot, "he feels modesty again and he hides behind the foliage. When his clothes catch him around the neck, under the arms, around the waist, he sets off on the road, pressing on his heels like a clothed man. His body becomes mute again and his lips prepare for words!"
Do you understand why the number of running "crazies" is increasing and why they have a certain spark in their eyes that makes them recognizable on the street? It's not just for health!
Yves Jeannotat