The Kowski independence movement running club

It was love at first sight, that first moment I saw her boobs bobbing up and down as she jogged past my house. Then, as I stared out of the window watching her pass, her glorious bottom, firm, taught, beautiful.

 

I found myself looking out of the window at the same time the next day and I wasn’t disappointed. She seemed to be part of a running group, there were over a dozen of them, men and women, all running past my house within a few minutes of each other, always just after six in the evening. It happened every day, regular as Sunday prayers.

 

I decided to retrace her steps and find out where she was coming from. If it was a running club I could join, I’m a serious runner myself, though there was no running club listed anywhere this side of town. I positioned myself at the end of my road, where she always came from, and waited. Because there was a stream of joggers I was able to follow them like a paper chain, when I saw a jogger running up the road I’d walk down to where he came from, then head to the next jogger, all the way to their source. She ran past while I was doing this and it was all I could do to stop my eyes leaping out of their sockets and resting on her breasts.

 

I ended up at the rugby club. Oh god, I thought, she’s so beautiful and she’s going to end up a rugby bore.

 

I was still intrigued enough to explore further, however, and I found a notice pinned to the wall: ‘The Kowski Independence Movement Running Club’ the sign read, ‘meets here every evening at six pm. Except during Purcash Festival.’

 

Kowski Independence? I rushed straight home to look it up on the web. It turns out that the Kowski Religion is a small religious sect in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Armenia. The small Kowski settlement in the UK is made up of émigrés from the above countries, escaping persecution in their own country.

 

I liked the idea of an independence movement with its own running club. I decided to go along to the next meeting, get to know the Kowski community within my own community.

 

“Why have you come here, to the Kowski religious community’s ceremonial running society, rather one of the numerous running clubs in the city?” asked Eric, who ran the club and doubled up, so he told me, as spiritual elder. He seemed an unlikely figure to organise a running club, he must be in his mid 80s, yet here he was dressed up in shorts, trainers and jogging top, the oldest runner in town.

 

“I love running,” I said, “and I wanted to know more about the Kowski religion. It’s always fascinated me. I want my running to mean more than simply keeping fit or getting my best time.”

 

Eric nodded.

 

“Kowski is the only religion that recognises running as the highest state of human experience,” Eric explained. “Kowski children learn to run before they can walk and for many running takes the place of prayer.”

 

“Takes the place of prayer?”

 

“Running places the mind in a very similar state to meditation. You focus entirely on moving one foot in front of the other, on the simple physical repetition of foot forward, next foot forward, it removes from the mind all distractions of work, family, politics. It allows a person to focus totally on being themselves, on being at one with their body. Physical pain is embraced and dealt with. Every Kowski will run 250,000 miles or more in their lifetime.”

“Wow!” I said. I was genuinely impressed.

 

I was allowed to take part in their evening run as ‘an apprentice guest’. It was a mixed group, about a dozen men and a similar number of women. The pace was faster than I expected, with the women almost as quick as the men. I managed to keep up with the woman I fancied though, and managed to make conversation with her. Her name, I learnt, was Naanya, like the bread they eat in the kingdom behind the wardrobe. I tried that joke on her once, never again, she looked at me uncomprehendingly, as if I were from another world.

 

I was surprised by the length of the run, ten miles altogether. Luckily I’m an experienced runner and was able to keep up, but it is quite an intense level of exercise to perform every day. Eric didn’t just take part, he led us all the way, an amazing feat of athleticism for someone of his age. Mabye there’s something to this religion, I thought.

After the run and a quick shower in the rugby club changing rooms, we transferred to the Wheatsheaf for a pub meal. “We always come here,” Eric explained. They have a Kowski chef. It’s very hard to get genuine Kowski food anywhere else.”

 

“Does the chef ever come running with you?” I asked.

 

Eric shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not,” he said, “he lost his legs in the wars, meaning he’s unable to run. For a Kowski this is a big thing, you understand, it’s like being unable to pray. Producing Kowski food good enough for the gods themselves is his way of appeasing the gods for not running and, more importantly, his friends.”

 

I didn’t really notice the comment about ‘injured in the wars’. There have been, after all, a lot of wars in the middle east recently, and we in the UK aren’t exactly squeaky clean when it comes to their origin. I let the comment pass.

 

After the meal we talked, mostly about politics. As I had learnt on the web, the Kowskis were a persecuted minority in every country they live, and given they mostly live in Iraq, Iran and Syria they were dealing with some pretty expert persecutors. Much of the talk was of the Kowski independence movement. Often we would sit in the pub and write letters to the UN, the government, our local MP, asking them to support the cause of Kowski independence. To our MP we included the additional invitation to come running with us, though he declined our offer citing an old cycling injury.

 

I began to run with the club every night. I was an ‘honoured guest’. I often ran alongside Naanya, though also began to know the others in the group. They were surprisingly chatty. The idea of running as meditation seemed very much Eric’s prerogative, nobody else minded talking as they ran.

 

The Kowski religion doesn’t have a bible as such, their sacred text is an ancient document celebrating running; it includes tips such as how to improve your time and how to avoid the common perils involved when running naked. The main body of the text, however, concentrates on the spiritual element of running, how to focus your mind into a runner’s mind, one able to close of the world and focus entirely on the connection between body and spirit. Maybe I was wrong about the group, perhaps they were just such experienced runners that they learnt to shut out my babble.

 

The book translates literally as ‘Runner’s World’, not to be confused with the running magazine of the same name.

 

“I’d like to join the club,” I said to Eric one day. By this time I was getting on very well indeed with Naanya, though I realised that I would never be able to see her regularly without becoming a member of the club. The time I could reasonably remain a guest member was running short.

 

“You realise what that means?” Eric said, “For this is not just a running club, it is a religious order. For the Kowski, religion and running are one and the same thing, a running club is a church on legs. To run with the Kowski is to be a Kowski.”

 

“I understand,” I said. “I’ve enjoyed the time I spend with you. I want to become part of your community, of a religion where running is everything.”

 

“Very well, I shall get the Register of Members and make you a membership card. This,” he pointed to a small leather-clad book, “is the member’s handbook. I suggest you read it before you join.”

 

I borrowed it for a night, but only skimmed through it. Nobody ever reads club rule-books do they? The point of joining a club is to meet people and have fun, not to read tedious literature.

 

As a member of the club I was allowed to see Naanya outside the club runs, meals and discussions. However, I had underestimated the level of her commitment to her religion. “No sex outside marriage,” she said, very firmly when I approached the subject. However, we started going out together and did the next best thing to sex; we become running buddies. In Kowski religion your running buddy is your soul mate, and, importantly, it entitled us to run privately together, away from the rest of the group.

 

Maybe this is it, I thought to myself, maybe it’s time to settle down and marry. After all, it’ll be the only way of getting sex, and by this time I was crazy for sex. To be this close to Naanya every day, to see her get hot and sweaty on our daily runs, to smell the sweat dripping from her body, when we kissed at the end of one of our private runs, the way she allowed my hand to stray, swimming through the trickles of sweat as I rove all over her body. Gods holy running shorts I was gagging for it. 

 

But I never had the chance to propose.

 

“Tomorrow you turn thirty,” Eric said to me one day in the Wheatsheaf, after an especially long run to welcome the coming of spring. Spring was especially important to the Kowski, as it meant longer days and consequently more serious running time. Though we ran in darkness through the illuminated city streets during the winter, it was under the sunlight of god that running achieved

“That’s right,” I said, “though I don’t have any particular plans.”

 

“Well,” Eric said, “you must be making plans for the war. Have you told your job?”

 

“The war?”

 

“You are a Kowski,” Eric said. “Now you are thirty you shall go and fight in the war of independence.”

 

I looked around the group.

 

“Why me exactly? Why not Torik, or Kalid? Or anyone else.”

 

“Runners World and the Running Club Rulebook are quite clear on this point. Only men shall fight in Kowski wars, we do not ask women to fight, just men when they turn thirty. Thirty is a good age, we do not expect children to fight, and allow men to mature, we do not fill our battlefields with naïve teens.”

 

“And Kalid?”

 

“Kalid is too old. Only men aged thirty to thirty-four are fit to fight, according to Runners World.”

 

This, I soon realised, was why the Kowski were so universally repressed. They had so few to fight for them.  

 

I thought about not going, but by this point I had burnt too many bridges, all my friends were Kowski. It wasn’t just Naanya, it was an entire world. Besides, I believed in the cause. An independent nation state for the Kowski people. Think of it, an entire nation where everybody runs.

 

I told work I was leaving for personal reasons and Eric gave me the papers to sign up to the Kowski army. I was to be a foot soldier. Well, all of the Kowski army were foot soldiers.

 

If we win the war and achieve Kowski independence, Nannya will come and join me in the new homeland. Until then, however, Naanya is moving into my house while I’m away. It will save her paying rent. When I signed up to the club I pledged all my personal belongings to the running club. It was there on page 63 of the Membership Rules. I don’t need the house anyway, I won’t be here, I’ll be in Iran, or Turkey, or Iraq, at war with whichever government we are fighting at the time, maybe all of them.

 

Tomorrow I leave for war. I’m running there, of course, 2,000 miles altogether. I am assured that there will be a boat for bits of the journey that involve crossing the sea, but the Kowski are the only army in the world that run instead of using motorised transport. It’s a sign of deep commitment to our religious beliefs.