I’ve not written anything in a month or so and I still don’t have any new kid material, but while running last night it occurred to me that exercise might be a topic worth tackling. Why? Because it’s such a hot issue. And really, it should be. As a society, Americans are unhealthy and ridiculously overweight. Have you been to Europe recently? You could fit two average-sized Parisians inside of a randomly selected American with room left over to squeeze in a smallish British woman. Whether that’s because Europeans smoke 12 packs of cigarettes a day or because Americans just can’t be bothered to push away from the trough, I don’t know. But I do know that passing through the Houston airport after a week or so on the Other Side of the Pond is an eye-opening experience. Y’know, the creators of Wall-E caught a lot of flak about their future space society, but I think they’re dead-on ... and that we’ll be seeing it right here on Earth inside of 100 years.
But enough of about that. Let’s talk about me.
If you know me well at all, you know that I absolutely despise running. I hate every step. Every single step. OK, maybe a few hundred steps of Mile 2 aren’t that bad ... but only on a relative basis. In Mile 2, the first HORRID warmup mile is behind me, I’m finally loose, and I haven’t yet fully internalized the fact that I still have another 10-15 minutes to go before I can make a U-turn and head back toward home. Do I ever get the so-called Runner’s High? You bet. It usually washes over me after I’ve spent 25 minutes either sitting on my deck or lying on my floor under a ceiling fan. It coincides roughly with the point in time at which sweat finally has stopped gushing out of my body and when I’ve almost cooled down enough to where the thought of a shower isn’t unbearable.
Runner’s High, indeed.
For the hundreds of thousands of ever-so-smug people who have convinced themselves that they actually LIKE running, all of this doubtless seems rather mysterious. Never mind that I’ve always had the idea that people who run as a “sport” just do it because it doesn’t require any real athletic ability. Seriously. Does it require athletic ability to hit a baseball? Um ... yes. Or control a ball with your feet and kick it past a person and into a net? Ding, ding, ding. Meanwhile, being “athletic” enough to run simply means that you have sufficient dexterity to not fall down. Anyway, I’ve had any number of well-intentioned runners go over the usual list of things with me in an attempt to make my experience more palatable. I’ve provided a sampling of these things below:
Helpful Comment #1 -- Listen to Music
I do listen to music while I run. If I didn’t, I’d be sentenced to hearing myself huffing and puffing and sounding like the old, very-overweight-by-1980s-standards-who-would-probably-be-considered-normal-sized-today guy who used to run on my street when I was a kid. You could hear him coming from about 100 yards away and he was basically walking. No joke. So yes, I listen to music. I am very careful to not listen to stuff that I really like, though (and I vary things up a lot), because if I don’t I ultimately end up associating a particular album or artist with the misery of running. Example? I used to really like Billy Idol ... but I spent a month or so running with his Greatest Hits album (the cadence is just about perfect) and now I can’t hear Dancing with Myself without wanting to scream.
Helpful Comment #2 -- Run with a Partner
This always makes me laugh. Run with a partner. Wow. I think people who believe that running with a partner actually helps are the same sort of people who, when they have a stomach virus, want someone sitting beside them holding their hand and telling them everything is going to be OK. When I have a stomach virus, I don’t want to be in the same building with anyone. I don’t care who you are ... leave me alone. And on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is winning the Powerball and 10 is having a stomach virus, running is about a 9.7. So, thanks but no thanks.
Helpful Comment #3 -- It’s Better if You’re Training for Something
I think the point here is that if you run, you should run for a purpose ... like you should always be preparing for a race or something. I kindasorta see the point here, but ultimately if one HATES running, one is NEVER going to want to run in a race (see 9.7 rating above). The fact of the matter is that neither my tolerance of running nor my ego, unlike that of an astoundingly large number of people, would get the slightest boost if I could legitimately announce that I was training for a marathon. You know what I would do if I actually worked up to running a marathon? I would get to mile 26.1 and quit, just to have a good story to tell. But I digress. Basically I run because exercise is good for you. Wait. That’s a lie. I run because at age 42, I’ve gotten too old to be able to get away with NOT exercising. That is all. And obviously that’s not a great motivator. We had a friend in Arizona (I’ll call him “Larry”, since that’s his name) whose wife was a distance runner for the Canadian Olympic Team. Part of her training regimen involved riding a stationary bike at their house. And when I say “riding”, I mean “beating into the ground”. This woman was intense beyond all reason. She actually BROKE two stationary bikes within a two year period. Larry was extremely athletic and tried to keep up with her in most things, but ultimately his comment was “Dude ... I’m just going to eat one less hamburger per day.” Hear, hear.
Helpful Comment #4 -- Well ... You’ve Just Not Grown to Love It Yet
Please. Paige frames this comment in the context of two of her life-long anti-passions -- jazz and fishing. Paige does not like jazz and does not like fishing. However, she has had numerous people throughout her life tell her, “Well ... you’ve just not heard MY type of jazz” (or done MY type of fishing). Upon trying this new and different and purportedly amazing type of jazz / fishing, her opinion of same remains unchanged. Insert “running” and I am right there.
So ultimately, I’m afraid there is no hope. Admittedly, the best solution would be for me to be able to “do” exercise that I enjoy. When I was in high school, I played basketball and tennis. Our basketball team had 10-12 players but only six of us ever played unless it was a blowout ... and we ran a full-court press the entire game ... and I never ONCE remember being tired. We didn’t run to get in shape. We practiced how we played and, as a result, were in ridiculously good shape. On the other hand, my tennis career at the University of Kentucky was cut short after one semester SPECIFICALLY because of the running component. Immediately following our three-hour long afternoon practice, we had to run four back-to-back quarter-miles, all under one minute each (with a one minute break in-between each attempt), or continue until the coach decided we’d had enough. I could always do the first two, but nobody ever made all four. So we stayed there however long the coach thought we should stay ... trying ... and failing. What did I do? I quit. Why? Purely because I hated running waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy more than I liked tennis.
Is there other stuff I could do to put an X in the exercise box? I guess. We have a clothes rack in our bedroom that is shaped vaguely like an expensive elliptical machine. Sometimes I use it during the summer. I could bike, but it doesn’t seem to do anything for me. Plus I don’t like wearing helmets and definitely would not want to be put into the same box with anyone who voluntarily wears Spandex. And I swim like a one-armed anvil.
So I guess I’ll just run.
But I won’t like it.
Peace,
Mike
