Running

And I run as fast as I can, but it's never fast enough. I'm not good at this. But I'm better now than I used to be, surely. Back in high school I couldn't even go a quarter of a mile without needing to slow down and now I've got two half marathons under my belt. Granted I still tend to finish towards the back of the pack, but not too far back. In fact it looks like I do better when compared just to other Staten Islanders; maybe it's the pollution, maybe it's all the smokers. Maybe we're fatter down here from all those big Italian meals like the ones that assaulted me during the holidays and which I'm back in the gym now to counteract. Not that it isn't great food, mind you.

The madness all started in the fall of 2007 when my on again off again love affair with the YMCA became on again... again. I was particularly drawn in this time by the notion of what they called a “fitness coach”. A fitness coach is something like a personal trainer, except he's not around all the time and instead is just responsible for setting you up on all the machines with programs that match your ability, then checking in every few weeks to see how it's going. This process repeats for about three or four months, and then you're on your own again. It wasn't very intensive, but it was enough, and it got me using the treadmills, which I hadn't really tried much before (I was more a fan of the elliptical machines, but since they've gotten in the newer models I've lost interest). Running on the treadmill led to running in the park, which in turn led to joining the New York Road Runners so that I could finally try my hand at some competitive racing. That's when I learned how far I had to go: those folks who do three miles an hour while they read a magazine in the workout room don't tend to sign up for this kind of stuff.

But still, it helped me build up my endurance. The real world is always harder than the treadmill, what with the wind resistance and the small but important shifts in the surface that end up slowing you down just enough to make you wonder what went wrong after coming from the perfectly flat and stationary simulation. The scenery changes though, which is nice, and the park is obviously a lot prettier than staring at a wall (or more specifically, at a window that looks out onto a wall).

One thing that changed since I started running is that I don't listen to music anymore. In the beginning it was the only thing that got me through my workouts, and I couldn't imagine going through the long, repetitive slog without it. But as I started to work myself harder I found that it was starting to become a distraction, making me dizzy at times, and it certainly didn't help that earbuds are phenomenally bad at staying in place while your body is constantly bouncing up and down and your arms keep threatening to snag on the wires and rip them out. My iPod also seemed to have a habit of turning itself upside down in the pocket of my shorts, and while I know that there are accessories that prevent this kind of situation I never had the desire to pursue them.

I overdo it sometimes, and it worries me. I've thrown up more times now from exercise than I have from drinking, and while the overall total is still pretty low it's a feeling that I can do without. When I've overdone it (and there doesn't seem to be any way to know when I've overdone it until it's too late), I start to feel about the closest I've ever felt to dying, save perhaps that one time at summer camp when I nearly drowned. It's like there's an intense pressure building up inside me, and I don't have a way to release it. Sitting down helps. Closing my eyes and pressing my palms against them to shut out all possible light helps. Vomiting definitely helps, if and when it finally comes around. I've never passed out from this sensation; in fact, I've never fainted in my life: I wonder now and then what it feels like. The sensation's only happened to me a handful of times, usually after using the weight machines, so I guess I should be glad that I need to wait for an appointment to set my FitLinxx account up again on the new machines now that they've been replaced.

In a way, I've always been a runner, or at least a sprinter. As a kid I had a tendency to break into a run at odd times, just because I found the energy for it building up inside of me; I especially loved to do it in crowded places like malls. I'll still catch myself doing it every so often, but now more because I'm in a hurry than just for the pleasure of feeling everything whipping past me. It's weird... normally I'm irrationally self-conscious about the opinions of strangers, but somehow that never seems to factor into the equation when I'm running (unless I'm around other people who are running, in which case they sometimes shame me into running faster).

As of right now I probably won't be running for a day or two. I think I twisted a calf muscle on the treadmill tonight, so even just normal old walking is a pain in the ass (a.k.a. leg). The strange thing is that it happened during the cool down phase, after I'd been running on it just fine for forty minutes. At least this time I was sane enough to end my workout and go home instead of just trying to work through the pain and probably screwing it up even worse. I've got to take care of this body... I'm finding out for the first time that it has hard and fast limitations that are probably only going to increase through the years. No complaints, though: it's had a good run.