Next Running Thought

First, a big "HIYA" to Katy who rejoins us here at T&S - Yay! I'd say Woot but I never really got the trick of doing that without feeling like an idiot down. When I do it it's a self-conscious "Woot" - kind of like a 50 year old talking about something being "da bomb" if you know what I mean.

Next, on to the running report! Brought to you by Linux, the best tasting operating system out there!

Yesterday was a 13.1 mile run, mostly because I just got back from vacation the day before and didn't feel like getting up at 4am for an earlier and longer run. It was warm, but it was MUGGY, which sucks. If you haven't run in lots of humidity, well, you're a very lucky person. I, in particular, do poorly in hot, humid conditions. Nobody does well in them, but some of us suffer more than others. I suffer most. I mean if everyone else loses half an hour on their time because it's just that hot and muggy, I'll lost an hour. If everyone else loses an hour, I'm probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere along the course. It's probably because I have the sweat glands of four normal men, and the body hair of five. And if that makes you think you don't want to give me a hug after a long run, you're right on track! But that's not what I was going to tell you about.

As I was running, I had another Deep Thought. And here it is! I was doing some self analysis, cause what else are you going to do when you're running for 2 hours by yourself, and I was thinking about how I tend to tell everyone how poorly I adhere to running wisdom. For example, my refusal to eat rutabagas and acorns, my preference for double flame thrower burgers, the fact that I stretch only after runs, and not for very long, and on and on and on. And I was trying to figure out why it is I do this. And my first thought was that it's kind of a safety net for my ego. It goes like this - let's say that I run a race and I do terribly, and 80 year old grandmothers are passing me and laughing all the way. I can always say "yeah, well if I was eating the acorns like you I could do that too!" So instead of just deciding that I suck I can say no, no, it's just that I'm not trying all the way. Another very real reason is that I'm lazy - some of the stuff you're supposed to do in training is hard and I just don't want to add 40 miles of biking to my weekly running routine. But as I ran, and sweated, and ran, another thought occurred to me. The real reason I don't do these things.

Rebellion.

As an adolescent I always wanted to be an iconoclast, someone who did not go with the flow. Most of us did that, I'm sure. I had the pseudo-long hair, the heavy metal t shirts, and so on. I dabbled in this experience and that thing and even got "arrested" once, which was cool at the time. Long story.

Well, you would think that over time that streak would kind of die out. As I get older, you might expect that the heavy metal t shirts would be put in the closet, then a box, then the trash, and the hair would first be cut short and then fall out. And indeed, these things have happened. But, there's still some streak of wild and crazy guyness left in me. And here it is! I don't eat acorns! I won't touch a rutabaga, and I don't do ice baths! Woot! I'm sticking it to the man! I never bought a heart rate monitor and maybe I never will! I rock! Some days, in the summer, I run indoors even if it's not raining! Carpe Diem, baby. When I tell people I don't do these things, what I'm really saying is, "I have something to say! It's better to burn out than fade away!" You can just hear the Def Leppard riff int he background.

So if you see me on the way to the school parent's night with my 2 children in our minivan driving from our house in the suburbs after I get off work at my 9 to 5 job in my tie, just remember, I'm a loner, a rebel, and anywhere I roam, where I lay my head is home (yea yea).