I went running yesterday. It's not something I do often, apart from my annual 10k road race (and at the rate I'm improving I'll be quicker than Paula Radcliffe by the time I'm 57), but after being blown away at football on Wednesday and having the true state of my physical conditioning thrown into sharp relief I felt the need to improve.
So, on a (the) glorious summer Saturday I dug out my running shoes and a David Beckham sleeveless vest trainers and whacked on some high-tempo rock on my iPod and headed out the door.
Unfortunately, I soon discovered why I don't go running very often.
It's dull, tiring, you feel bad when fat people pass you, walking, while eating an ice cream. Then, after deciding that you should run up a hill a bunch of fallow deer block your path.
Realising if I just turned around I would be forced to run past all the picnicking couples I had passed a mere two minutes earlier, making my athletic pose look about as convincing as Boris Johnson's I enacted an emergency detour.
Running through a lush field filled with happy couples making a far better use of the sunshine and nature than I had managed. I jogged on, then it hit me.
Ahead of me was a small hill, but a steep one. I accelerated. Five metres before the start of the hillock was a tree, two meters after the crest was another. I picked up my pace again.
I hit flat out at the first tree, and drove on. I found another gear halfway up and thrust out my chest for the tape at the second tree.
It was effortless, powerful, I couldn't feel my feet hitting the ground, I flew. I was alive.
I doubled my jogging (trudging) pace and headed for the park gate, ran on through and home.
I think I had just experienced my first endorphin rush, today my hamstrings hurt but the memory is strong. I might even go running again.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Endorphin rush - Ebren
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16 comments:
Careful, Ebren - it seems that once the running bug bites you, you stay addicted for a long, long time.
I used to live in a house overlooking a park in East London, where you could see many manic runners, notably a pair of identical twins who always wore matching Dennis the Menace stripey shirts, they must have been well into their seventies and they ran every single day ...
What's with the tiny font, by the way? Were you feeling specially self-effacing?
Like alcohol and nicotine I have this addiction well under control ;o)
The little font is there as I couldn't keep the links and the font. The links won.
I haven't been posting much recently and I have clearly forgotten some tricks.
Ebren,
as you measure excellence by historic comparisons, usually athletic, we are hoping for a sequence with:
"I ran fast and jumped far, I am a regular Carl Lewis"-
btw:The sleeveness jacket a la D. Beckham is called:
-cross-training shirt-:)
good of you to dash this off Ebren, it certainly jogged the memory tho I cantor say I flew like yew
perhaps I should have skipped the punnets but winging it's leg(-)it, non?
lope there's lots more to come, trot off the press like, certainly filling a kneed and what a feat but it's all in your stride, toe good to be true?
file,
that will be your first yellow card of the new season. Remember greengrass got a lenghty suspension for atrocious punstery last season. His "youth in Asia" effort is still shown in refereeing schools across the land.
Ebren,
stop this nonsense immediately and resume your smokin'n'drinkin'. You are in grave danger.
ebren
I feel that you may have left out some of the pauses and resting segments in your epic mini marathon...
which has allowed the ferocious epunster file to draw nigh to the girth
but the boris reference is a bridge to far to run to... surely
If I'm entirely honest there were a couple of "walking breaks" and at least one "collapse in a heaving wreck on a bench" break.
But the problem is that you feel the need to be actually running whenever anyone else can see you. And the park was packed on a sunny saturday afternoon.
My legs still hurt.
Lord Ebren
May I suggest you stick to football.It is by far the most sensible decision I took for myself a few years back.
Next time you feel a similar desire, just walk:))) Far more enjoyable and relaxed
pipita - it was inadequacy at football that drove me to this aberrant behaviour. That and the threat of one of my two weekly games being taken away.
As a colleague called Nic once said - knowing my luck if I tried to get fit I'd be hit by a bus.
of course he got his endorphin rush from little blue pills with apples on them, so perhaps he wasn't the best choice of role model.
good luck with the fitness drive Ebren - especially as you are about to halve your football paticipation.
pipita,
another week-end without a game? why did they cancel river/newell game?if you start feeling frustrated, you might consider jogging as an effective therapy.
None of that is true, don't listen to them, Ebren! I hate running but by renewing the habit for the first time since high school my football is very much improved.
Running bores me stupid, but I put podcasts on my little Shuffle clipped at my collar and I run where the people are to make sure I maintain my form and speed. I'm miserable throughout but doesn't it feel so, so good when you are done? Always worth the effort.
I'm exhausted just reading it.
But I'm very pleased to learn that it's still possible to use the phrase "high tempo rock" without irony.
And without treading on Dave Barry's toes, "Endorphin Rush" -good name for a high tempo rock band.
Guitou
The reason River haven't played for a second week running, is because of the ferocious clashes between the two rival "Barra bravas" factions of the club that cost the life of one member last week. So it was not deemed sufficiently safe to play a match under those conditions. Its a tremendous mess and no one knows at the moment when the team will be able to commence the tournament. Most ironic thing are the surnames of the two faction leaders, one of them is called Shenkler and the other Rousseau, two middle-class kids, can you believe it.....
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