Why do we run?

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2015/jun/18/five-novels-every-runner-should-read

Why do we run? In his book on the subject, Mark Rowlands complains that most books about running reframe this question in terms of what use it has. We run because it keeps us healthy, reduces stress or brings us joy. We run for the satisfaction of a personal best or for the thrill of the race. We run to meet new people, to be part of a team or to impress the opposite sex. All of us will at some point have explained our pastime in such terms. But Rowlands argues that running, at its best, is valuable for what it is in itself, not for what it gives us. In other words, we run just because. And this is an idea that comes naturally to the novelist.

When the reform-school boy in Alan Sillitoe’s The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner throws away a race against a rival school, he does so not only to deny glory to the institution he detests, but because to win – even to finish – would be to undermine what he’s come to learn is the true value of running. “You had to run, run, run, without knowing why you were running,” he says. “This feeling was the only honesty and realness there was in the world.” For once, he’s doing something that is not done for the sake of something or someone else.

The following five novels are recommended as portraits of a runner’s life, as well as for being forceful reminders that running, at its best, is something we do for its own sake.