Revisited from a previous blog: Letting Go

My buddy gcole shot me an email pointing to an old blog that I had posted to once and forgotten about. It was funny to read it now almost four years later. It's not embarrassing except for maybe the comparison to an A&F model that I'd probably leave out were I to do it again. More than any of that, it's just really interesting to read it now, a marathon and many assorted miles later. I still have a similar feeling about running now as I did then... I can't be totally away from it for too long for fear of getting too out of shape. But two years of running with Aimee has really matured that impulse and I'm not so in love with the notion of hard core running training or with "great" performance. That said, I run a lot further now then I did back then and it has become a lot more enjoyable. The other thing that I find striking as I read this is the blatant void waiting for climbing to fill it.

Thursday, April 14, 2005
Letting Go
I was a college athelete. For my four years of college, every season was spent in some way preparing for or recovering from track season. At the beginning of the school year was fall track or pre-season. Mostly we ran around the track for various amounts of time and at various speeds. Some of those days I would also lift weights. Then it would snow in Maine and get really cold. Being a sprinter, I would wave good bye to the distance runners as they left for long, cold, snot rocket-filled runs along the roads around Waterville. Meanwhile, we would run around a shorter track for various amounts of time and at various speeds. Occasionally we lifted. Oh and we often would do elaborate warm up drills that involved skipping, hopping, and lunging. These motions were often accompanied by elaborate hand motions. This was indoor track. On saturdays, we ran around the track less then normal, but much faster. Then spring came to Maine and even though there was still snow on the ground, we moved back outside because spring is the time for outdoor track. During this season, we ran around the track, lifted, and accomplished the jumping and hopping warm ups somewhat more gracefully than when we were indoors. On Saturdays, we ran around the track faster than we had on Saturdays during the winter.

So what's my point?

My point is that all of this running around in circles has a weird way of becoming habit forming. It's not something that's easy to explain and if you had spoken to me at the end of my senior year, you might not have predicted it at all. At that time I was declaring to anyone who would listen that after graduation I was not going to run farther than the bathroom -- and then only in cases of dire emergencies. It took all of about two weeks for me to break that promise. And it probably would have taken less if I hadn't been so desperately sick after the rampant binge drinking of the week before graduation.

So why was I addicted? I've had plenty of time to think about it in the five years since. Part of it was probably the look. Sprinting and lifting has a great way of cutting your body fat down to a minimum and since I was already lean it cut me down even more. I was as cut as Abercrombie models -- just not as big or cute, but still its the abs that count, right? That was certainly part of it. Deny it to myself and others as I might, I liked the way I looked.

Then there's the arrogance angle. I certainly hadn't peaked by the time I graduated. Sprinters don't peak until their late twenties or even early thirties. Of course, most sprinters don't continue to train through their late twenties to early thirties. But nevertheless, I knew that I could only get better and now that I was freed of the ridiculous restrictions of my coaches, the sky was the limit. No more worrying about overtraining or any of that crap. Overtraining is for sissy pansies.

So left to my own devices, what happened? It wasn't exactly the mechanical 200 meter workouts run at ever increasing speed. Instead, it was surges of motivation when I would run a lot and lift. Lifting was never a huge problem. I just did it. I never got huge, but I stayed in good shape. Running, on the other hand, presented a more difficult problem.

I was easily caught up in waves of enthusiasm. I would be a fast miler. To be a fast miler, I would run ridiculous amounts of mileage as quickly as possible. I wanted results and I wanted them yesterday. I could easily run ten miles. So I did it. Addicted to the riteous feeling of being an athelete in training, I would run six or seven miles the next day. If it was hard, that was only proof that the training was good. Within a week or two, I would be injured. The giddiness of the images of greatness would be replaced by frustration and impatience. If it wasn't for my knee, I could be running so much faster. Impatience usually led to an early attempt at a comeback - if you can 'comeback' to something that you've only been doing for two weeks consistently.

You might think that a smart person would recognize the pattern after the first or second time that it happened. In fact, a smart person probably would. I've cycled through that pattern at least six or seven times in the last five years. In the midst of all of this, I became an avid reader of workout books and magazines. From Men's Health to Runner's World; Daniel's Running Formula to The Book of Muscle, I read them all. Imagining the effects that each carefully laid out program would have and debating whether it made sense to get too big from lifting if I really wanted to be running a fast 5K and perhaps even throw in a marathon just for show.

I demanded of myself that I be on a workout program. If I was going to be spending time working out, I needed to make sure that I was maximizing it. I needed to get the best possible workout effect, build the most muscle possible, and gain as much speed and endurance as I could so that...

Now let me backtrack for a second. Maybe it makes sense. I wanted to get bigger and faster so that I could compete in races. That's fun, right? There are very few track meets that I ever enjoyed. The races might be fine. But the time leading up the a race was pure torture. It usually began on Friday night, when friends went out and drank themselves into an unthinking stupor like good citizens. During this period, members of the track team usually congregated. It was fun to be with the guys, but sometimes you could feel nerves beginning to show. And by the time, you tried to go to sleep they were in full effect. By Junior year, I was so impatient with the routine that I took Tylenol PM the night before every meet. At breakfast, the food was unappealling and often hard to eat at all. Swallowing almost triggered the gag reflex on a routine basis. And once we had arrived at the meet, being surrounded by the whirl-wind of activity that is a track meet made it much worse. I feared the start of my race and every event that indicated that my event would indeed run and that it was getting closer only intesified those feelings. I was afraid that I would not run well. I was afraid that I would chicken out and not run hard enough. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to run, because my legs felt completely weakened. All of this introspection led to one thing: self loathing. I hated that I was so nervous. Too inexperienced to realize that everyone gets nervous before major events and there's no way around it, I assumed that it was a character flaw. For a really great explanation of how it feels to waiting for a race read John L. Parker's Once a Runner. Parker's description is amazingly accurate. I get butterflies just reading it.

So I guess the point of that whole digression was to make the point: no, racing is not particularly fun. Or at least, it wasn't for me in college. So what was I getting ready for? Well, I liked the idea of racing and have done it occassionally, but not regularly. Beyond that I think that I have simply been addicted to the idea of being in shape and of being the athelete.

Along the way I have ignored so many things. I tried Tae Kwon Doe for several months and enjoyed it. I was even beginning to get good at being a White Belt with a Yellow Stripe. It was fine until I realized that all of this time spent punching and kicking was really taking away from my running. I hadn't been running in forever. I was getting out of shape. I wouldn't be able to...

I tried yoga once. It was a little new-age for me, but I did enjoy it in spite of myself. I think that it could be a great way to reduce stress, increase flexibility, and just generally feel better. Unfortunately, it couldn't contribute to the bottom line. Would I run faster? Would I be able to lift more? It was cut before it even made the team.

Worst of all, during these years of working out, I even ignored sports. A lot of people join soccer or basketball leagues to hang out with friends, have a good time, and hey-what-the-heck get a little exercise too. I didn't have the need for extra exercise and couldn't see fitting a workout plus a game into my schedule. So I haven't played too many sports in a while.

Most recently I have been following the Core Performance program with a co-worker. It's a great program and really addresses a lot of aspects of fitness. If you need to get in good competetive shape or have the time and just feel like getting in great shape, I would definitely recommend it. For me, it's just another in a long string of paper coaches who I have substituted for the living coaches that I followed in college. Ironically, I left school thinking myself free of the tyranny of organized workouts and then quickly sought them out in books and magazines as soon as I was left to my own devices.

Core performance workouts have left me tired and sore. I feel the same satisfaction that I got five years ago when my hamstring would cramp up after an intense workout. But is all of the time and energy worth it? Exercise is cited as a huge stress reliever, and I believe that it is. But does it really workout that way, when working out is just another stress in my day? Should I rearrange my life to accomodate a demanding workout program?

Today, I decided no. This week I haven't had a chance to workout. And it felt crappy. At the same time I was thinking a lot about how much working out should impact my life. Tonight around 8:30, I knew that I just needed to go for a run. I opted for a short 2.5 mile run around a pond. I didn't time it. And I didn't concentrate on my pace. I enjoyed the feeling of going fast but didn't feel like I needed to press it further. When I was in sight of my car, I stopped running and walked to it.

During that run, I resolved to stop being a slave to working out. Exercise is important. But only because it makes you feel good and live better. It's not an end unto itself. I resolved not to be a slave to programs. Just like eating the same food every night for dinner gets boring, so following a single workout program. The only reason to follow such a program is to 'Maximize your Results.' Who cares? I resolve to run when I feel like it, get into pick up basketball games where I can, and learn to surf for the hell of it.

But most importantly I resolve to ignore those resolutions whenever I feel like it and do what I damn well please.

Is Google Making Us Stoopid?: A proof of concept?

I was in Starbucks today reading about the 1936 Iraqi coup d'etat when an older guy stopped on his way to a nearby table where his daughter was waiting and stared at, I thought, my feet. After a moment's pause, he continued. Then he stopped again and looked back. After a few more beats, he continued to the table. I was self-conciously checking my shoes for unnoticed dog crap or anti-american graffiti or something that would explain a member of the greatest generation's attention. I was drawing a blank and was heading towards an undignified smell-check when he started to say something to his daughter but was interupted by the barista calling him back for his drink. Uncharacterstically patient, I decided to wait for him to come back, hoping he would explain what was wrong with my feet.

When he did come back, he pointed back towards my table and then asked his daughter if she had seen it. As I shifted my feet underneath my chair to avoid further scrutiny, he told her that it was article about whether google was making us stupid. I had the Atlantic on my table and the cover article this month is Nicholas Carr's Is Google Making Us Stoopid? which is followed in smaller print by What the Internet is doing to our brains. It's a well-written and interesting article that voices the author's concerns about the effects of internet usage on the way that we think, particularly in terms of our ability to focus on topics for long periods of time and think deeply about ideas. Mr. Carr worries that the pre-dominance of quick one to two paragraph articles and blog entries have made us incapable of reading longer form work, preferring instead to scan a few paragraphs for information. He means not only that we are no longer able to read books like Gravity's Rainbow (which is a problem I can attest to) but are also incapable of reading longer form articles, ironic, I thought, to deliver such a message in an article weighing in at just over five pages. While I thought the argument was mostly alarmist and even Mr. Carr, himself, admits that he could just be a modern version of those who decried the printing press, I think there is some basis for his concern that is for me best illustrated by the state of cable news and the decline of the newspaper.

I had to wonder though, as the man after explaining the title of an article of which he probably had never even noticed the subtext, went on to argue that the article was baseless. "Does the encyclopedia make me stupid?", he countered.