My dad: “You know what I like about hard work?”
Me: “What?”
My Dad: “Absolutely NOTHING.”
I remember that exchange from when I was a kid and my dad
had just dug eighteen postholes with a two-handle posthole digger. I was just carting off dirt, but I was a kid
and it seemed like I was the only one getting tired. I was shocked to hear him
say something like that. From my
perspective it seemed like the only thing he enjoyed more that hard work was the
prospect of watching me collapse from over exertion.
Fast forward to today---After starting a running program in
my mid 50’s, I kind of feel the same way about running.
You know what I like about running?
(Surmise)
~~~ *** ~~~
Rewind a bit for backstory---I started my love affair with
running at Southlawn Elementary School in Amarillo, Texas about 40 years
ago. Coach Bland would take a group of
fifth and sixth graders out to run laps around the football field five days a
week during P.E.. The amazing thing to
me then was that about half of the kids could do it well on their first
day. About a quarter could struggle
through, but the rest of us were either gimpy, or in my case, morbidly obese.
To make matters even more pathetic, I was the slowest fat
kid. By the way, that’s just what we were called
back then because kindness to children hadn’t been invented yet. In fact, we called ourselves fat kids---and I
don’t remember it ever hurting my feelings or anything, but anyway. I was the slowest of the rear-guard and I
never finished any higher than dead last.
Ever.
But when I think about it, saying I was the slowest isn’t
exactly accurate. Starting out, I’d lead
the fat kids and even most of the gimpy kids---but I invariably vomited somewhere
near the first lap---and again near the third or so. On bad days I vomited every few steps.
Coach Bland instructed me to stop puking----and I tried hard---
but It just seemed to be my body’s way of dealing with the physical trauma of
jogging. I probably lost about half a pound every time I ran laps. I assumed I
would eventually stop, and that running would help me lose weight in a more permanent
and healthy way. I kept running for two
years, five days a week but---as disgusting as it may sound with all the
vomiting---running always triggered a massive spike in my already insane
apatite. I was still a fat kid,
lumbering around a football field leaving a trail of puke behind a bunch of
other kids.
My love affair with running abruptly ended in the seventh
grade when I discovered cigarettes and dirt bikes. I never lost any weight during my short
running career, but I shot up to 6’ 2”, and the fat sort of distributed itself
across my aching bones to produce something like a slender young man. Still, riding
dirt-bikes and walking to the drugstore for cigarettes was about the extent of
my physical exercise program, and it seemed to work pretty well into my late
twenties.
I didn’t think about it much until twenty years further on. I
realized that cigarettes were kicking my ass.
I tried to quit about fifty times using gum, patches, pills, and all
sorts of things. Finally, someone
recommended martial arts. I got involved in this obscure (at the time) Israeli fight-club-like
program. I did surprisingly well and got
in the best physical shape of my life---even in spite of continuing to sneak
cigarettes the whole time.
One night at Fight Club, sensei devised a singularly abusive
exercise wherein half of the club would put on heavy leg weights and try to run
across the parking lot while the other half without weights would chase them
and kick their legs out from under them. I vomited almost immediately. Sensei
congratulated me on my use of defensive biological weaponry, but said it was
good that I had decided to learn how to fight
because he didn’t think flight was
really an option for me.
I got a green belt, which at the time was as high as you
could go in Krav Maga without breaking a bone, but then the club was taken over
by a gang of aggressive pyramid-scheme salesmen and leather-bar enthusiast, so
I kind of lost interest and sat down behind a desk for a few more years.
I got fat again, but I comforted myself in the knowledge
that I could probably still kill most
people with a Q-tip; however I was still uncomfortable and I started having
frequent back problems that I knew were a result of deadlifting a hundred
pounds of fat every time I stood up.
(Whiplash tangent warning)
Meanwhile, my eldest daughter had taken an interest in
learning to play bagpipes. To support her, I went along and picked up an
interest myself. When I actually started
marching with the band I thought it was good “do-able” exercise, so I kept it
up.
I lost about twenty pounds when I took up bagpiping. It’s aerobic even if you are just standing
there, but when you start marching…well for me at least, it was a profound
physical challenge. I often felt like
vomiting, but I never did! As an added bonus, I finally gave of smoking in
favor of being able to breath.
Ok, I didn’t quit nicotine, but I gave up cigarettes by switching
over to using eCigs. Sure, a lot of people say are just as bad, but screw
those people. If they know what’s good for them they’ll do their number and let
me do mine. Got it?
~~~ *** ~~~
That brings me up to about two months ago when my wife and I
watched a great documentary about the Barkley
Marathons on NetFlix. For some
unknown reason---perhaps it was the gallows humor of Gary Cantrell, the guy who designed the completely insane course---or
his weird dungeon-master approach to staging it, but I found myself inexplicably inspired
to start running. Of course, this posed a
problem due to my allergy to spandex and my running experience. I’d almost rather “be in hell with my back
broke” than to get up and run around my neighborhood, but that’s exactly what I
started doing about four weeks ago now.
OK, I only started actually running about two weeks ago, and
even then, only for short one minute jogs.
I started walking for thirty minutes, then adding in the 1 minute
jogs. I’m up to five minutes running and
twenty five minutes walking with nary barf, puke nor urp.
I got some Asics shoes, some jogging shorts and a hydration backpack
and set out. No spandex though.
The basic plan is to keep adding jogs till I’m up to a solid
half hour running, then see where it goes from there.
As a completely unexpected bonus I was immediately joined by
my wife, all three daughters, and all three dogs. The cats opted out, but that’s to be
expected.
So far, so good---or to put it in more Vonnegutian terms---So
it goes.
Tra la la,
O.S.
~~~ *** ~~~
