Phil Hewitt - Outrunning the Demons: Lives Transformed through Running

Contents

Its not an easy thing for a chap to admit, but I suspect there have been times in the past couple of years when I havent exactly been the easiest person to live with. And yet from the moment I FaceTimed from South Africa to say: Err Ive been stabbed, my wife Fiona has been utterly unswerving in her love and care and concern.

I am not sure I would want to live with someone who leaps out of their skin at the slightest, sudden, unexpected noise as I still do, but Fiona has accepted my new and rather odd normality in the same way she has always accepted my running. Thank you. You have been amazing.

Massive thanks also to our children Adam and Laura, medical students both, fantastic human beings too. We are immensely proud of you and thrilled that your beautiful caring natures are taking you both into the caring profession.

My thanks also to my parents, Graham and Juliette. I dont think I have ever been happier to see anyone than when you turned up to meet me at the airport after my ill-fated trip to South Africa. I could barely stand. I hurt all over. I still shiver at the thought of that awful journey home; I still go wobbly when I think of my relief when I saw you both waiting for me at arrivals.

As for my friends, it would be impossible to repay the debt I owe you.

When I think of the support you have shown me, I start to understand why I have never for a moment wished the stabbing hadnt happened. It underlined, double underlined and triple underlined that I have got some fabulous mates, all with hearts of gold.

I am a little horrified when I think of the hours you have listened to me droning on and on about my South African adventure. I am bad enough when I talk about cricket. Awful too when I kick off about The Rolling Stones.

But with the stabbing, I know I have talked and talked and talked, my way of coping. And I know I lost the filter that should have cut out some of the more gruesome details. It has been my nature to niggle away at what happened, to agonise over the what if s and to search for answers I can never possibly find. My friends have all responded with astonishing kindness, compassion and understanding and also a total lack of judgement. Gary, John, Ian, Steve, Helen, Vicky, Jo, Hazel, Brian and Sophie in particular. Fabulous people. Very, very dear friends indeed.

And in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing, Tony looked after me amazingly in Cape Town. You wrapped me up in warmth and kindness when I needed it most. Truly a friend in a million. Your strength and decency counted for everything in those first few days.

My thanks also to my father-in-law, Michael. Michael started marathon-running at the age of 69 because he was fed up with seeing my finishing photos on the wall of our downstairs loo. He went on to achieve far more in his running career than I could ever dream of: in terms of medals and age-related times, he has lapped me time and time again, and he is still running strong at the age of 86. Michael, you are a genuine running mate.

You have been superstars, one and all. Thank you too to Ros: endless patience, endless insight, endless kindness.

And Kate too. I still squirm in embarrassment at my overreaction in your kitchen: my moment of sheer, stupid, unspoken terror when you, a dear friend of 25 years standing, picked up a knife as you quietly, unthreateningly, did the washing-up. I am so sorry, Kate. But again, I cant truly regret it. You saw that I needed help. Your encouragement was a turning point as was your encouragement, a couple of months later, in the writing of this book. It came, as so many of our best conversations do, over a pizza in Chichester.

Thank you too to Matt Lowing at Bloomsbury, a fine runner himself and a superlative editor. Thank you, Matt, for seeing beyond the book I originally submitted and opening the door to the book I needed to write. This book truly took off with your vision.

I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to the remarkable people I have interviewed in these pages. People I approached out of the blue, people who responded with warmth, openness and kindness when I asked them to share with me and with you their tales of adversity.

I am still jumpy; my memory has been poor since the attack; my concentration is often abysmal; I long for an unbroken nights sleep, even as the third anniversary approaches.

I cope. And I cope because I run. But I cope too because of the people I have spoken to in this book. You have been my guides. I have learned from you all, each and every one. You have inspired me. Fantastic people. Good people. Brave people. Ordinary people who have braved extraordinary events and have come out running the other side.

Thank you all, Caroline in particular. Your gentle wisdom and your patience with someone relatively new to trauma have been invaluable. You have helped me massively. Your kindness has been very real, very immediate despite the thousands and thousands of miles between us. The sweetest of voices from the other side of the world.

But my biggest thanks inevitably go to Steven. How could I possibly thank him enough? The fact that he stopped for me was the warmest of comforts in the sleepless nights that followed my stabbing. I saw the worst in man. Very quickly, I saw the best. How decent. How brave. How very human in the very best sense of the word. Its perfectly possible that I owe him everything a thought I am proud to carry with me for the rest of my days.

By Dean Karnazes, ultramarathoner and NY Times bestselling author

Running has the power to inflict great pain, and running has the power to heal. A famous surgeon once lamented: To cut is to heal. To be alive is to suffer wounds. Such injuries often come at our own hands; they are self-inflicted. Others such as the loss of a loved one are a requisite condition of being human. Neither the wise man nor the virtuous man can escape this sentence. All must endure. To live is to suffer.

A monk may seek transcendence from this suffering through quiet meditation. We runners have a different prescription. Running is our remedy, our salvation. We use running to lighten the unbearable heaviness of being, to cope with the unthinkable and to piece together life once more, step by restorative step.

The potent catharsis running delivers remains mysterious. What could possibly compel a human to strip nearly naked and do something that has all but lost its purpose in this modern world? It defies logic. There is no necessity for running; we runners voluntarily seek the pain, the discomfort and the struggle this accelerated form of locomotion doles out. But herein lies the magic. The hardship of running somehow softens the hardship of life. Running turns the madness into music.

The book you are about to read is an inspiring collection of stories about runners who have run through unimaginable adversity to find perspective, resolution and ultimately peace, within themselves and with the universe. These stories are sure to inspire and compel you, whether you run great distances, modest distances or are just discovering the splendour of a spirit in motion.

I run my finger along the ugly, jagged scar on my leg. It tingles unpleasantly. It always does. The runner next to me smiles and nudges me. Youll be alright, mate, he says. And I know I will. What he actually means is: Welcome back.