The art of running

After last years Lakeland 100, I received an email from my Himalayan 100 room mate Paul Stoneley, saying I was in the Trail Running Magazine race photo. I’d just out missed out on being able to buy a copy as it was now last months issue and no longer available, so Paul sent me his copy when he’d finished with it. I was in the far background, the tiniest of dots really. I barely noticed myself, even when i’d been told I was in the photo. When I asked Paul how on earth he’d spotted me, his response was that he recognised by Baseball cap and running style.

To be honest I hadn’t really thought of myself as having a running style, much less one that was recognisable from a tiny dot on a photo in a magazine. I didn’t  think any more of the photo or the comment until last week when I was asked to do some drawings of runners for an art project in a couple of weeks time. The project was a printing project being ran by Northern Print,  at Sage the Music Venue next door the the Gallery I work at. They were looking for solid black and white images of runners that they could print.

Over the years I’ve collected plenty of photos of myself running  in various races and events i’d taken part in, so it was an easy enough task to take a few shots into photoshop to crop myself out and paint my profile into solid black. After completing a few images, I got the idea to copy and paste a few profiles together to create a sort of group shot of 4 or 5  me’s running together.

They say a picture says a thousand word and this one certainly was no exception. Seeing myself as a  black and white outline really highlighted just how high I hold my arms, how far my elbows stick out, how far my legs cross over and how much I tilt my head as I run.

It’s funny whenever I see another run I instantly analyse their technique, thinking that they need to extend their stride, push their knees out more, lean a little further forward, hold their arms lower or fasten their pack tighter. It turns out I should have been taking a closer look at my own style.

The bridges festival will be taking place in a couple of weeks and i’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with my drawings. The image above of course will not be one of those produces as some shades of grey and some blurring to the shadows for this blog post.