This is my pug Nyxie. She is turning 1 on Monday. Nyxie loves lying on my bed, snoring in my ear, and going to the park to play. Just the simple shouting of the word ‘Walk’ and she freaks the hell out. I just did it to her 30 minutes ago before I took her out and she started spinning in circles in excitement. Right now, as I type this, she is meandering between sitting near the open front door, her little bed, and the carpet. Every 2-3 minutes, up she stands, walks to the next spot, sits down, REPEAT.

I think a lot of Nyxie when I am running, well I think of dogs. Now the first question you have to ask yourself is why the HELL do I think of dogs? When you take a dog to the park, all they want to do is run and play. You can literally let them run for an hour and despite being exhausted, they will pop up off the ground and keep running. So when I run I think to myself, I should be like a dog. Just enjoy it and not stress about times and distances.

In general, I am not a big fan of Philosophy. I took a course of Modernity and Post-Modernity and thought it was all a stupid pile of rubbish. Maybe I just didn’t understand it? But I respect people who do, it’s just not for me. Despite being an archaeologist of Greece, the nation who invented Philosophy (or atleast the word), I generally hate reading Socrates and Plato. I honestly think if I met Socrates, I’d probably want to kill him after five minutes. He was the Hipster of the ancient world… Not working and claiming what he did was extremely important. Can you tell I am a big fan of Aristophanes?!?! (ANCIENT HISTORY JOKE- NOT FUNNY TO 99.94% OF THE POPULATION)

But one philosopher in the ancient world really appeals to me. Diogenes of Sinope. Apart from living in Pithos(A massive storage jar), one of his ideas is that you should try live life like a dog. He liked the idea that dogs lived in the present with no real fear of the future. Looking down at Nyxie, she is definitely like that. When I walk to the park with her, she runs up to the biggest, meanest looking dogs. “Hi! Let’s play”… I am afraid of these dogs and I am like 15 times the size of Nyxie. If one of the dogs suddenly barks at her and tells her in dog to ‘f%ck off’, off she runs to find another dog to play with. No stress, no worries, just living life for the moment.

So it’s this attitude that I try take into my runs. I often find myself so preoccupied with ‘How fast am I running?’ ‘Will I make 8.5km in 60 minutes today?’ ‘When should I have a small break if I plan to run for another 20 minutes’. Instead, I should run like a dog. If I feel like running faster or longer or taking a break- well I should just do it and not worry about the grand scheme, cause ultimately it will work itself out.

So today, I plan to run like a pug!