And I've Got A Long Way To Run

Peer pressure is a five letter "B word" if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Seems a number of my friends have gone and lost their damn minds.  They've taken up running.  "For fun," they say.  "It's healthy, too."  What's next?  Eating balanced meals?  Organic products?  I shuddered a little just typing all that.

While I was out roaming the country, friends from all over took up running.  Serious running.  Like, in organized running events with fancy names like "marathon."  (Yes, I'm looking at you - Curt, Tripp, Bethe, Jill, and Lance).  And since it hasn't killed any of them (yet), I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about (again).

(Note: Yes, I myself participated in a marathon relay in the past.  Once.  Back in the Mesozoic Period of late 2004.  But that was something like 1200 days and twenty, er, thirteen-ish pounds ag0.  And projects undertaken where the underlying motivation is at least 93% directly related to impressing a girl shouldn't count.)

So I put on some Nikes and went down to the Fitness Room yesterday morning.  And it went well (by which I mean that I did not throw up and no one was there to witness my herky jerky movements on the treadmill).  Afterwards I met some friends for football and some healthy, organic cheeseburgers at a sports bar.  They were a little surprised to hear about my morning and asked how it went.  And I'll tell you what I told them: That at this time, I'm choosing not to measure my performance by traditional methods.  So you won't hear me talk about "how far I ran" or "how long I ran."  What I can tell you is that I ran farther than most shoplifters get.  And that in the end, I think we should just celebrate that I ran until after I started to sweat, ran some more, and afterwards I made it back to my room without the aid of medical personnel and their stretchers.

P.S. I ran again this morning.

Comments

[Bethe]

Welcome to the world of running insanity. It's not that bad, except for the wanting to throw up part, and the part where you realize that you would rather be doing anything except for running. But the rest is really good.

[Curt]

The boredom is the worst for me too. It takes a long time to run 10 miles (for me).

[Simon]

It amuses me how far we've come as a civilisation...used to be that people would keep fit doing their work, and go home and relax at night. Then we discovered technology, and labour saving devices, and thought "yeehar - now I don't have to work as hard!" So we started working at desks and inside all the time and discovered our waistlines bulging and our skin going a pallid shade of grey. So now we've created this thing called 'exercise', where we go to work all day and then do some hard physical work on top of our work. As Wendell Berry says, this "takes one elegant solution and turns it into two problems." And we're supposedly the smart, civilised ones? :D

[Luke]

Forget those hippies that are running 10+ miles. Screw that. 3.1 miles is far enough for any sane person. Actually, maybe you should take up sprinting. I mean, if a bear or a zombie is chasing you, you don't need to run a half-marathon to get away, you only have to be faster than ONE other person for a short distance.

[Autumn]

Luke has a good point...

[amyc]

Ha! Curt is the FARTHEST thing from a hippie. But, yes, Luke makes a good case for sprinting.

Personally, I see no need for any running of any sort. :)