Challenge and Defeat

(I'll update about Ashlee a little later).

I find that in my life I seek out defeat. I don't mean that I like to lose, or that I have a defeatist personality. I mean that when it comes to athletics and exercise and sports and such, I like difficulty. Of course. Therein lies the point of the activity I suppose. I've always found that I'm an above average athlete. With a sort of minimal exertion I can usually exceed the average standard. For this reason, certain sports can become sort of "boring" for me, and I seem to be drawn to those at which I do not immediately excel. Case in point: running.

I am not a very good runner, nor have I ever been. Even when I only weighed 150, I still was not very quick or particularly blessed for distance. The quickest mile that I ever ran was about 7:30 or so, and the longest distance that I ran completely (without large stretches of walking) was 10k (6.2 miles), and that still took me about an hour and 20 minutes. Now that I am 60-75 pounds heavier, running has become even harder for me. I can run a maxed out mile in about 9:56 or so now, and i can only run an outright two miles without stopping for a walk break. I have decent biomechanics, I think, and above average cardiovascular conditioning (this may be a genetic thing, as I have good conditioning even when I'm very out of shape). The problem now is just moving this much weight for a long period of time. I ran/walked a 10k last May with my brother in about 1:40 or so, which is crazy slow. I just did 7.05 miles or so last week, but it took me about 1:50.

Athletes are interesting. They are very aware of the aging process, as they can see on paper how much they have slowed down. A runner can see exactly how much they have aged by seeing how much their mile time has dropped. They may see exactly how much older they have become by examining their pain levels in the 22nd mile of the marathon. It must be an odd sensation, knowing precisely how much less you are than you were, or at least how different you are. In his new book, "Again to Carthage," the sequel to his cult classic, "Once a Runner," John L. Parker's character Denton explains it to the protagonist Cassidy this way:

"...Your average citizen isn't that connected to the physical realm. Builders, farmers, your grandfather probably was more
than most, In an older time, with say manual agriculture or hunting-gathering, you always knew how much less you could
carry than a year ago. Believe me, when dinner depends on running game to the ground, you notice pretty quick when it
starts to get harder."
"You've done some thinking about this."
"You will, too. Modern civilian though, things happen too slowly to notice. Jeeminy, when did the basement steps get me
wheezing? Am I old or just out of shape? And if you were never IN shape, is there any difference?"
"Whereas we can just watch ourselves slowing down like there's a gauge on the dashboard."

This sounds scary and sad, but isn't NOT knowing even more frightening? The phrase "Am I old or just out of shape? And if you were never IN shape, is there any difference?" is particularly en pointe. I think that I'd like to experience life, and experience the slow decline thereof as well.

Running also has an interesting dynamic. It takes me at least two miles before my body really wakes up and decides that it wants to keep moving. This isn't the second wind. The second wind usually hits me at around mile 6 or so, which is unfortunately also about the time that my feet are hurting too much for me to keep moving forward, and I'm already largely on my way home. I am excited though that one day this won't happen until mile ten or more, and so I will be able to enjoy the second wind. For those who don't know, there is a discernible point during the run at which you are exhausted and then seemingly become re-energized or reinvigorated or something. You are still tired, but it seems like a switch was flipped and you are now running on new fuel. It's enjoyable, and I've only experience it with running. With cycling it seems like you have one peak right before the halfway point in the ride and then it is a slow decline into painful hell until you stop. Running has that double peak that I yearn for.

I have only enjoyed a runner's high two or three times in my life. The first two were back in the 160 pound days while I was running around Piestewa (read: Squaw) Peak. It was a 3-4 mile loop, or a 5 mile wandering trail that I liked to do, I don't remember which. Anyways, I became euphoric and exhilarated and felt like I could not run fast enough to match this feeling. It was amazing. The latest time actually happened on a treadmill during a 1.5 mile tempo run at 24Hour Fitness. At 1 mile in, with .5 mile to go, running at about 90% effort (7 mph, I think), I experienced a distinctly physical high. I noticed that my respiratory muscles began to burn, and I was expecting that painful near-cramping, vomit-inducing pain that accompanies high exertion. On the contrary, I felt a blood rush like what I used to get form powerlifting, and my entire upper torso and shoulders (diaphragm, intercostals, pecs, all neck muscles, anterior delts, and lats) felt amazing. It was not the mind altering high of the trail runs, but an almost orgasmic physical sensation. I felt like I never wanted to stop, but unfortunately had to get back home to shower and go to class, so I had to. I have had trouble recapturing that same feeling, but I am certainly trying.

I'm not sure where I intended to go with this entry, and I seem to be just rambling and jumping around randomly. My point is that running is not natural for me, and I seek out it's defeats as they keep me hungry. This is necessary for me, though other people get discouraged easily by those things, and should then find easier forms of exercise. I'll end this entry with another excerpt from "Again to Carthage," this one being thoughts coming to Cassidy as he does a tempo run through wooded trails:

"Picking his way carefully along the trail, he thought about something he had read about the great alpine climbers. As
children, they grew up surrounded by a vast landscape of unattainable peaks. As they grew older, stronger, and more
skillful, when they looked up, they saw more and more places they had been to and to which they could not return at will.
That zone of accessibility would grow and grow over the years until the very best of the guides could stand in the village
squares and turn full circle, searching the horizon in vain for some tiny forbidden aerie they had not conquered, some
remote crag beyond their powers.

It would have to be a wonderful and prideful thing, to feel so thoroughly at home in such a daunting and beautiful
landscape. But as they grew older, the climbers who survived would find that some peaks were difficult again, some climbs
strangely taxing, some routes quite impossible. They would realize, to their surprise, that the process was reversible;
that it was, in fact, reversing.

You could see them, the aged former heroes sitting sadly in the village square, turning full circle to gaze at a frozen world
once again inaccessible to them."

Oh, and this quote from Plato would be good here as well, just as a self-caution:

"The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, the musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. The two should therefore be blended in the right proportion."