Running is dumb

A quartet of questionable intelligence, all of whom ran this weekend's East Toronto race, the Midsummer Night's Run: Me, Jeremy Busch, Mike Deneau and my sister, Julie. Photo by Barb Busch.

Running is stupid. It’s a stupid activity and the people who do it are dumb. Take me: I run, and the only reason I can determine why I do run is that I am really, like monumentally, dumb. I don’t enjoy it, particularly. Well into the training for my fifth marathon I must admit I remain a little mystified why I feel compelled to tie on my shoes and conduct an activity that causes me such startling levels of pain.

For example, did we ever talk about these things I’m doing, these Yasso 800s? No? Here goes: Yasso 800s are supposed to help you predict your marathon finish time. Basically, you try to run lots of 800m sprints in the number of minutes and seconds that is the target time in hours and minutes for your marathon. For example, this year I’m trying to do the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in under three hours and sixteen minutes. That means, for Yasso 800s, I should try to run my 800m sprints also in 3:16, except for the sprints the 3:16 means three minutes and sixteen seconds. Running wisdom suggests that if by the end of your marathon training you can run 10 Yasso 800s in your target time in minutes and seconds, then you’ll probably be able to hit the equivalent marathon target time in hours and minutes.

Last week was my fifth week of doing Yassos, which means I had to run eight 800m sprints, trying to get each one under 3:16. My sister went with me to do them—she, too, is in training. Yassos are a suspenseful ordeal. As you’re sprinting through your double-laps you’re wondering, can I keep doing this? Can I keep this up until the end? The previous week my 800 times started around three minutes and crept up to about 3:11 for the final one. Not bad. Well within my time. It made me feel pretty good. Maybe these things were working.

This week, my first lap felt fast but my time came in at 3:11. Which for a start time is terrible. So for my second 800 I pledged to run the cobwebs out of my legs. Instead, all I could think about as I ran was, why the hell did I eat that big lunch from Café Brasiliano? All the way through the last lap I could feel the garlic in the macaroni burning up and down my esophogaus. I came in at 3:08. OK, not bad. Except the next one, the third one, I came in at 3:18. Crap!

“If I don’t beat 3:18 this time, I’m quitting running,” I told my sister. And off I went. This time burning my esophagus was what I ate after I ate all of Café Brasiliano’s garlic macaroni, which was a chocolate bar, specificially, a Cadbury Crunchie. Which was stupid. A character trait I’ve already admitted applies to me. It’s like some kind of nutritional suicide, my relationship with chocolate. I knew I was going to have to run Yassos that afternoon. And yet I went ahead and gobbled the chocolate bar anyway. Why? I have no idea. Because I’m an idiot. But then I said that. Anyway, the time was 3:15. Whew. Following reps were 3:20 (eek!) then my stopwatch died on the next lap, then I used my sister’s stopwatch for the seventh one (3:16), then the final was, holy hell, talk about horrible: 3:35.

I chalked up my egregious performance to not having recovered from the 30k I ran the week before. Then this Saturday night I ran another 30k, a race on the east side of Toronto called the Midsummer Night’s Run, which starts at 6:30 p.m. and then finishes after dark. This time I made it to about the fifteenth kilometer without seriously contemplating suicide. Then my legs tightened up. Not just my hams, not just my calves… every part of my legs.

Which got me wondering why I do this stupid activity, this running. Why not do something else? Something that hurts slightly… less? Last week, including my Yassos and my big 30k run, my total mileage was 65k. At an average pace of five minutes per km that works out to 325 minutes, or almost five and a half hours. Per week. I started thinking, what if I practiced five and a half hours a week at something that was actually fun? Like, cribbage? Or poker? Sleight of hand card tricks?

“Quit it.”

This was my friend, Jeremy Busch. And this was on the home stretch, around the 25th kilometer, when, to get my mind off the pain in my legs I took to shouting swear words until Jer asked me to stop.

Around the same stretch a couple of guys on the boardwalk nudged each other as we ran past. “Either of you guys have a cigarette?” they asked Jer and I. Then they cracked up. Jer and I discussed which form of homicide would best suit the two of them.

“Just four more kilometers,” Jer said.

Which meant, 20 minutes, give or take. I had a headache. Separated from the rest of my body was my legs, which strided back and forth on the edge of cramping. And because I was on the edge of cramping, I was paying too much attention to my gait, which meant my upper body was too tense, which meant my shouders and traps and neck muscles were clenched. Which made my headache worse.

Jer and I finished in 2:32. Not quite the five minutes per kilometer I wanted, but pretty darn close. I went home and crawled into bed and tossed and turned the whole night, I think because I was hungry. I didn’t feel right again until the next afternoon, after I’d done a really slow 5k and eaten the biggest Hero Burger on the menu, which looks sort of obscene, it’s that big, but boy did it taste good.

And then today, Monday, I’m back to normal. It’s like someone’s hit my reset button. I got on my bike this morning, off on an errand to take some books back to the library, and a thought popped into my head as I pedaled: “I feel like a run.” And I do! I am dumb! Remarkably dumb!

Comments

[nancy shulgan]

Why Christopher do I have to learna about your life on the internet?
Why do runners cramp up?
Your
Mom
xxoo
Ps I was looking for pictures of my grandchildren. Why do I have to do that on the internet?

[nancy shulgan]

Why Christopher do I have to learna about your life on the internet?
Why do runners cramp up?
Your
Mom
xxoo
Ps I was looking for pictures of my grandchildren. Why do I have to do that on the internet?

[myles]

Chris, Your mother just became my new online hero.