I Coulda Been a Sprinter

I went for a jog the other night ten days ago. (This post is severely delayed because my mother was visiting, and I just don't do things like finish typing up my blog posts while she's here. There are more important things to do, like go shopping, and to the Natural History Museum, and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and play Bananagrams. I will now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.) Why? It's hard to say.

"Classified?"
"No, just difficult to pronounce."

Sorry for the tangent. That's one of my favorite quotes from Stargate SG1, another nerd show with the word 'star' in the title with which I have been obsessed. Where was I? Jogging, right.

I have, perhaps, mentioned that Saturdays leave me a bit tasted, chewed, swallowed, and vomited-back-up feeling.

That was a little graphic, sorry.

In other words, it is the longest stretch of time in which I have to pretend that I am a nice, normal young woman who likes being around people. This is, of course, a complete sham. Except the 'woman' part. I won't classify myself as 'young' because I'm too cynical.

Wow, the tangents are zooming left, right, front, and back. Watch out, they travel at high velocity and could be dangerous if you get too cose.

Right, back on track.

For some reason, I was feeling less masticated than usual. As I was walking home, plugged into my iPod as usual (it cuts down on people-interaction, and makes me feel like my life has a soundtrack,) when a particularly groove-worthy song came on. Suddenly I thought, "I feel like going for a run."

Then, "But I should really run in the morning because they say that's better for your metabolism."

"Who is this 'they' of which you speak? And why would 'they' want to squash my running urge?"

"True, I most likely will not feel like running tomorrow morning. I should just do it now, while I'm in the mood."

"Right. Now, the trick is to stay in the mood long enough for it to happen. That means no getting comfortable, just drop off your stuff, change as quickly as possible and head back out before you can convince yourself that you'd really rather have a bit of dinner and Star Trek.'

By this time, I was at my door. I dropped everything, changed at Warp 7, and was back out before my Laziness could catch up to me.

I didn't want to go around the whole park because it was evening, and that would take too long. So, instead, I ran next to the park for a ways, then dived into it and wound up following another girl who had apparently had the same conversation in her head.

The great thing about running where other people can see you is that they act as a motivator. For some reason, my pride gets all bent out of shape if I have to walk for a while to catch my breath when other people are around. This keeps me running for longer stretches of time and forces me to recognize that no, I'm not going to die if I keep it up for another block. And another. And another.

Some people get more and more motivated as they exercise, but for me there always comes a point at which I've really had enough. I struggled home, stripped down, showered, then sat myself down and relaxed for the rest of the evening. About 2 hours later I felt really good, the endorphins doing their job I guess. Where were you when I was running? I asked them ruefully. They just shrugged and smiled and said, "See, exercise does make you feel good!"

Grumble.

Yeah, until the following day when I rolled out of bed and made a sound like "HyGAAAAYAHooooooh". And for several days after that, too.

Sigh.

This is the problem with sporadic running. Oh well. Better than nothing, I guess. But I actually really like the sensation of running. I love going really fast down a hill and feeling like I might just lift into the air before I reach the bottom. It's the endurance I don't do so well with. I should have been a sprinter. Another missed calling in life.