Running With Bob - Paul Faulkner
Bob and I started our habit of running weekly when I moved to Sheffield in 2001. Our first run was remarkable in that it was both unique and in that it set the tone. Unique because it was pure competition, a proper race, which was not what I expected since when we made the arrangement to go for a run I had laboured my excuses, “I was just starting again, not fit, still trying to quit smoking” etc. And because these excuses had been accepted and Bob did not seem the competitive type, or someone who would want to make a run into a race. Of course, I now know that appearance to be misleading but also know that he was competitive in the best of ways. There was no frustration that he failed to drop me, just pleasure in the game he had sprung. And that run set the tone because it showed us both that we equally took pleasure in making runs effortful.
This mutual enjoyment led to Bob persuading me to run the Sheffield Half Marathon in 2002. This was my first race since I was a teenager and set me on the path to becoming a runner again. We then did this half marathon every year together, until I broke down with injury from too much marathon training in 2012. Bob continued yearly until 2021 with his best time being 1:29:08 in 2013. This quick time was owed, I think, to parkrun. I persuaded Bob to try parkrun in 2011, with his first being 30 April 2011, in Endcliffe Park about half a mile from our houses. And parkrunning soon became a loved running habit, and when I ran his last parkrun with him on 27 April 2024, it was his 388th. I would join him at some of these, but not so many – writing this I am only at 99. But parkrun became his weekly competitive focus. This made him quicker: 2013, the year he broke ninety minutes for the half, he ran his best parkrun of 18:49 (where for context, Bob was early fifies, a ‘V50’ in running-speak, in 2013). And this shift in competitive focus meant our weekly runs changed; they became more leisurely. We could talk the whole way round, rather than merely part.
We always ran two routes. A Summer route out through the parks: Endcliffe, Bingham, Whiteley Woods and on to the point where the path goes steeply up. This is about seven miles. And a Winter route up through and around the expensive Sheffield suburbs. This was slightly shorter but hillier and so the same time-wise. Sometimes we would vary these routes but rarely. While Bob was open to variation, he was obviously discomfited by it. At first, I was a little frustrated by this, since historically I’d used running to explore, but Bob’s logic prevailed, and there is logic here: in following the same tracks, we both knew when to push (early days) and had nothing to distract from talk (later days). These running talks were a real pleasure. We all have friends from different places and times of our lives, and no one connects all places and times, but Bob connected four things that matter a lot to me, which, in no order, are running, philosophy, work – and by this, I mean University life – and family. He had a family before me so understood the early sleepless nights and all the stages you go through bringing up kids. I could moan about work – University life – knowing he understood the people and issues and would have the good judgement to help me see how to deal with things. And philosophy: we both used these running talks to work through whatever research ideas we were working on. At one point, running and philosophy even connected. If I recall, Bob saw running partly in terms of a Kantian duty of respect for himself and his abilities (but he might have just said this could be argued). And he inspired me to turn my frustrations at never being sure I’d pushed hard enough in a race into a paper on the epistemology of trying. What was great about discussing philosophy with Bob was his infectious enthusiasm for philosophical questions. So Løgstrup, who occupied a lot of our talk, has come to permeate my thinking on trust. I’ve even written a paper on Løgstrup on trust – two if you count one co-authored with Bob and Chris! And Bob had a remarkable ability to see through the philosophical details and complexity and get to the nub of things, the big picture.
So I could rely on these running talks to help me think through philosophy, let off steam, and work out how best to deal with whatever issue I currently faced. And I could rely on them with regularity, every Tuesday, or occasionally Thursday, after work. And it is only now that I am beginning to realise the depth of this reliance and how important was this prosaic habit.
