A hundred moments in autism - Running

Cherry

By Terrence Oblong

Fri, 14 Mar 2025
  • 467 reads
6 comments
 

I have run since my early teens, long before I had any idea that I was autistic.  I find running calming, I enjoy using my leg muscles, the ability to lose myself in pure physical exertion, no thought required. There is a chemistry behind the experience, the physical exercise of running creates a rush of adrenaline and endorphins.  Runners are essentially drug addicts. Addicts with blisters and sore knees.  

I love to run in nature, not in the hamster-wheel restriction of a gym. For years I ran around parks, the only available green spaces near where I lived. At university, I ran along the seafront. My current route includes a section along the river Cam.  I run to the river, then along the river for a kilometer and then back. Six KM in total, which I run twice a week, baring bouts of illness, or bad weather. 

Running is an autistic safe space. There is no need to mask. There is no need to understand complex social situations. There is no need to worry about visual communication, understanding social cues, suppressing hand gestures or other stimms.  

Autistic author Chris Carse Wilson shares my love of running. In an article in Runners World he states “Running offers an escape from day-to-day life – which can, otherwise, be exhausting to navigate.” He explains how the physicality of running, being in control of his breathing and his body, helps him manage the stress and anxiety that comes with being autistic in a neurotypical world.  

The rhythm of running calms me. Left leg lift, left leg down, right leg lift, right leg down. Mindless repetition (and I love repetition as my readers will have noticed). Mindless, thoughtless, pointless as well. 

The pointlessness is part of the joy. 

I am running nowhere. Nowhere and back again – the worst travel blog ever written. 

Certificate 15
Biography
50 moments in autism
Biography

Comments

Submitted by celticman on

Like many of us it gives rhythm if not directon to our pointless lives. The pointlessness is the point. 

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

never been fit enough to run, so for me it's walking. But has to be on soft ground. I like feeling the different things under my feet, too. And all the details around. Like turning inside out, to get rid of my self and fill up with grass shapes and leaves and bark etc. Had thought of it as flight bit of fight or flight thing, not autism, but maybe that's the same

 

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

I've been running since I was a teenager, over 40 years now, so it's just something I do, but part of it is the contact with the outside world. I've always run in parks, by rivers, by the sea.  

 

Submitted by Sooz006 on

I love these, Terrence.

I use the treadmill and enjoy yoga(but only in spates) my boredom threshold is very short and I never keep it up. I love walking in nature, but only if it's somewhere new, again using the same route bores me very quickly and I don't keep it up. I'm hopeless. 

I would love to have any kind of exercise addiction. Well done you for discovering something that works so well for you. 

 

Submitted by Mark Say on

I've been running for fifty years; find it a great stress buster. And much better to it in the outdoorsman on a treadmill.

 

Submitted by Terrence Oblong on

Running helps me cope, it's part of the Terrence-spaced-hole I've carved for myself in the universe. Of course, many, many non-autists run, we're different from neurotypicals, but also very similar.