The loneliness of the long distance runner

This photograph was taken on Primrose Hill as the sun was setting in an almost colourless sky.

At dawn and dusk the runners come out all over London. They swarm to the parks, riversides and green spaces with breathless, measured steps. Some hold their heads high, chest forward, while others slump on their hips, their legs dragging them unwillingly on. Sometimes pairs, groups or even fast-paced troupes pass you on the road, causing a breeze to ruffle on your skin. But more often it's single people, contained units of energy and effort, a loud breath in your ear.

This image made me wonder about the reasons why people run. What spurs us on to expend energy in a circular fashion, ending where we have begun, going nowhere except home by a longer route than necessary? Does no one ever just stop and wonder at the pure futility of it all?

To look at things this way is to miss the point entirely, of course. These part-time athletes are not running through space at all, they're running through their own minds - treading out the frustrations of a sedentary career, pushing through the pain barrier just to prove they're alive, burning off the chocolate cake they won't resist tonight, fleeing the mindless lure of the television, honing their bodies into the ideal they have in their own minds - or that of a significant other.

And that restless energy is the spirit of the city. It's as if all those feet pounding circular routes on pavements and path are what sets the gravitational core of our urban sphere spinning, a physical manifestation of the human effort required to keep up the pace, to go forward always, and every day begin again at the start.