I’m throwing this up here as a mental sticky note.
Exercise pretty much always exerts a positive influence on my moods. Some forms of exercise work better than others. The top five appear to be, in order:
Any number of studies have demonstrated the positive effect of exercise on mood (see, for example, Matta, Hogan, Jorrman, Waugh, & Gotlib, 2013; Steinberg et al, 1998), though some have noted that additional factors, such as a telic (that is goal-centered) or paratelic (non-goal centered) state of mind also influence outcomes (see Legrand & Tatcher, 2011).
Because I have found the impact of ballet on my mood to be both immediate and longer-lasting than that of, for example, cycling (which tends to produce an intense immediate uptick, but does not seem to support as stable a day-to-day mood as ballet does), I think it would be really interesting to explore whether that’s, you know, “just me,” as it were, or whether the effect might generalize.
Since I have a senior seminar project proposal to design, I’m seriously thinking about seeing if I can find some way to swing this sort of thing: for example, a six-week study involving randomly-selected people who will be randomly assigned to one group that does three sixty-minute ballet-based workouts a week; one group that does there sixty-minute non-dance workouts at similar intensity; and one group that doesn’t do anything (they’re the controls who don’t do any— hey, wait a minute!).
I don’t know why ballet works so well for me. That’s another question entirely. However, I do see some potential here for a therapeutic application.
Presumably, other disciplined forms of what is generally called “concert dance” could work as well — modern dance worked similarly well for me during my “modern dance is better than ballet because tradition produces stagnation” phase in high school. A sound background in ballet, however, creates a firm foundation for other disciplines, just as a solid dressage background forms a firm foundation for other equestrian disciplines — so ballet seems like a good place to start.
There are a couple of programs out there that already harness the power of dance to lift up the lives of troubled youth and other underserved populations (see Dance United and Promethean Spark International); I think some grounded scientific research might make it easier to get programs like these ones off the ground.
I can’t help but think of the positive impact that the best ranch-based programs for struggling kids have had on so many lives, and likewise the positive impacts that both dance training and working with horses have had in mind. Boiled down to their lowest common denominator, both dance and working with livestock share a surprisingly large number of features: hard physical work, rigorous mental discipline, immediate and tangible consequences, and transformative outcomes.
I feel like I might be getting ahead of myself, here, but I can’t help but think it would be really cool to take something like ballet (which is, after all, a lot more amenable to an urban setting than setting up a ranch) and make it accessible to kids in an under-served urban community or struggling youth and young adults.
I mean, sure, there are magnet school programs in some places, but I know from my own experience as an absolutely shattered thirteen-year-old who opted not to audition for a magnet program in dance that it takes a confidence that kids in difficult circumstances might not have to apply and audition and so forth. My outcome was positive because my family had resources: I wound up going to the same magnet school for a different program a couple of years later, thanks largely to a lot intervention that cost a lot of money. Where would I be now if my family hadn’t had that money?
In short, quite probably, dead.
I keep thinking about this in the context of my own experiences, both growing up and right now: I was lucky because I could afford to take ballet classes, and I am still lucky because I can still afford to take ballet classes.
However, there are a lot of people out there who could benefit just as much as I can or even more, but who can’t afford it, even at LBS’ extremely-reasonable rates. And, of course, health insurance doesn’t cover the cost of ballet classes (and even if it did, a $25/co-pay would be a higher per-class rate than I’m paying right now!).
I also think that opportunities like this shouldn’t just be available to kids, but making them available to kids is a good place to start.
Maybe getting ahead of myself isn’t such a bad thing. That’s how you come up with goals, right?
I know I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting behind a desk. I also know that I am too much of an interfering busybody to keep from trying to find a way to make everyone else on earth try ballet 😛 Perhaps there’s some way I can turn all this into some kind of meaningful thing that would be useful to humanity.
So, anyway, this is far longer than I ever intended it to be. That’s it for now. Keep the leather side down!
References
Legrand, F. D., & Thatcher, J. (2011). Acute mood responses to a 15-minute long walking session at self-selected intensity: Effects of an experimentally-induced telic or paratelic state. Emotion, 11(5), 1040-1045. doi:10.1037/a0022944
Mata, J., Hogan, C. L., Joormann, J., Waugh, C. E., & Gotlib, I. H. (2013). Acute exercise attenuates negative affect following repeated sad mood inductions in persons who have recovered from depression. Journal Of Abnormal Psychology, 122(1), 45-50. doi:10.1037/a0029881
Steinberg, H., Nicholls, B. R., Sykes, E. A., LeBoutillier, N. N., Ramlakhan, N., Moss, T. P., & Dewey, A. (1998). Weekly exercise consistently reinstates positive mood. European Psychologist, 3(4), 271-280. doi:10.1027/1016-9040.3.4.271
First, On Unhelpful Thoughts
If you do ballet, you already know that ballet class affords very little time for indulgent mental wanking. Especially when you’re new, or “re-new,” as I currently am. However, because our minds are capricious, every now and then an unhelpful thought finds its way in.
Like, for example the following:
This is the unhelpful thought that I had last night. It actually wasn’t judgmental or anything … just. You know, like, WTF? Because my butt was all, like, pointy and triangular in profile in the mirror while we were doing something facing the barre (I can’t even remember what, now!). I didn’t know butts could even be pointy and triangular, but there you go.
I don’t remember any other random, unhelpful thoughts from last night, so there probably weren’t any. But that one was amusing enough to last a good long while.
And Now, the Round-Up
Strengths
Weaknesses
Chaines: Scourge of the Universe
I asked Denis last night what he’d like to see in a beginning ballet blog, and he asked for explanations of basic positions and stuff with links to videos, so I think I might put together a wee series of that sort of thing.
That’s it for now. I must go forth and clean, then try to learn not to fall over whilst executing chaines.
Notes on the Notes
*Unfortunately, we do not yet have a surface at home on which one can practice more than two chaines at a time, because I cannot do chaines small enough to fit more than two in our tiny kitchen, any everything else either has carpet or huge area rugs. We are in the process of planning a studio for the basement, and — come to think of it, there’s always the storage room and my backup slippers.
The nice lady at the front desk at LBS took this for us, which was totally lovely of her. If I was a better person, I might have some idea what her name is. I really should have pointed my foot and squared myself up and so forth … but, hey, it’s more ballet picture than I had before 😀
Oh, and here’s the goofier version. I have no idea what’s going on with my head:
The number of things that are wrong with my arms in this picture cannot even be enumerated.
I am absolutely certain that I will have hilarious tales of falling over mid-sous sus useful and enlightening thoughts on technique to recount after class tonight, so for now I am just posting this week’s Monday weigh-in.
After much prevaricating around the shrubberies and adjusting for initial scale-related follies earlier in the year, which at one point led me to think I had lost more weight than I had, it turns out I’ve somehow lost nine pounds this year.
This means I now weigh 165.0 pounds. For those of you playing along in the UK and, you know, the rest of the planet, that’s 11.78 stone or 74 kilograms.
Depending on whether I am 5’8″ or 5’9″ (which never seems to be entirely clear), this means my BMI is either 25.1 or 24.4 (what a difference an inch makes…). Regardless, I suppose this means I am basically done with the “being overweight” phase of my weight-loss journey and on to the “chubby only in the insane worlds of ballet and cycling” phase*.
For what it’s worth, while I am very much a supporter of the “don’t deprive yourself of the foods you love” plan, a week of eating rather better than usual seems to have finally given me the push to get off the 166-lb plateau I’ve occupied for, like, six weeks now (not that I’m complaining). I haven’t been depriving myself, just partaking in smaller and less frequent indulgences. Same number of calories, different outcome. Perhaps I’ve just been burning more than I realize, but the outcome is unexpected.
My dietary shift, in turn, has resulted from plastering my refrigerator door with pictures of David Hallberg and Daniil Simkin like a thirteen-year-old girl plasters her middle-school locker door with pictures of OneDirection or whatever the boy-band-of-the-week is. Or, at any rate, that has been a contributing factor.
The dancing hippos are there to remind us that nobody can tell you what you can or can’t do … and also because they’re cute.
So there you have it. I am not sure I’m going to start posting my weight every week, because I am really far better at maintaining than I actually want to be, and that could make for a really boring series — but we’ll see.
‘Til later, keep the leather side down.
Notes
*I am a chunkier dancer than I am a cyclist, possibly because ballet is even more insular, alien, and intimidating-to-the-average-Joe than cycling is.
After a winter characterized by minor mental breakdowns, a minor mental breakthrough is a welcome thing. So here’s mine for today:
When you’re marking movements, don’t forget about your arms*.
On Saturday, in class, I failed to mark the jetes effectively. In particular, I forgot that I had an upper body, never mind that my upper body had been doing brilliantly a moment before. Thus, whenever we did a pass, my upper body was like, “WTF?!” And then my legs were all, “ZOMG, upper body, get with the program!” And then everything fell apart more or less literally.
When you mark movements, you’re wiring your brain to do them (why didn’t I think of this in class? I should know this stuff!). Thus, you need to make sure to incorporate all the limbs and so forth.
Even though you’re not going all out, you are enchaining the circuits that should be firing together and, if you use visualization, harnessing them to a kind of mental 3D movie of David Hallberg executing whatever movement you’re marking**.
Research has demonstrated that good visualization activates the nerves in both the brain and the muscles, so when you mark and visualize, you’re practicing. What you mark and what you picture will influence what you do at the barre and on the dance floor.
For what it’s worth, I’m realizing that it might take a little while to remember how to be a dancer when you’ve taken a sizeable break and concentrated deeply on a very different athletic discipline. It’s cool, though, because I now have an opportunity to develop an intellectual understanding of something I only grasped by instinct earlier in my life.
In other news, I lost about a pound over the last few days. Hecks to the yeah!
That’s all for now. Leather side down!
Notes
*So, yeah, this should be obvious, right? I blame cycling, “The armless sport.”
**Okay, and also David Hallberg, because if you’re going to visualize technique, you might as well visualize exceptionally solid technique…
First note: if you travel to class with your partner, always bring your partner’s dance belt (or shoes), even when he claims he isn’t going to dance. Denis thought he didn’t want to dance today but I had all of his stuff except for his dance belt, and when we got to LBS, he decided that maybe he might be able to dance after all.
I didn’t want to seem pushy, so I had left his dance belt at home (even though all of his other stuff was already packed in our mutual dance bag). On the other hand, he did get an opportunity to pick up a few pair of jeans to replace those recently lost to attrition. Since he wears jeans to work, an adequate supply makes a huge difference.
Anyway, Denis will be back in class with me on Monday (I already promised our teacher he would ^-^).
Onward!
So today I felt like my arms were much better, probably because I have spent the past four days thinking about them and working on trying to make them move gracefully and attempting to remember which arm positions go with which foot positions.
For some reason, my core felt kind of wiggly today. It did funny things to my sous-sus, which is a wee bit half-baked anyway because “huge cycling quads + still kinda fat for a dancer = fugly sous-sus.”
Seriously, I thought cycling provided reason enough to trim down, but I’m lean enough that I’m not in my own way on the bike. In the ballet studio, my thigh chubs are still, you know, kind of intrusive.
Beyond that, though, barre went fairly well, except for the bit where I got behind the count during degages and made this rather hilarious attempt to catch up. SOME DAY I WILL LEARN TO COUNT. Thouh, by that time, I will most likely be back in a place where I’m comfortable enough with what I’m doing that I sort of auto-count.
Oh, and the part where for some reason my upper body decided to do first arabesque left while my lower body did first arabesque right. Evidently, the small brain that is supposed to relay information from my head area to the end of my tail wasn’t — oh, wait, I am not actually a stegosaurus, even if I dance like once sometimes.
I enjoyed a little chasse-saute exercise we did across the floor, and felt like I kind of almost actually looked like a dancer finally, instead of a big sack of awkward in a dance belt and expensive slippers (or a dancing stegosaurus).
On the other hand, my jetes were terrible. I felt like a baby deer trying to learn how to lope along on big ol’ gangly limbs. I sounded like an elephant (or maybe a stegosaurus). At least I didn’t fall on my face, though.
This is particularly frustrating in light of the fact that I used to love all flavors of jete, especially tour jete, and right now I can’t seem to get my arms and legs to work together in a plain ol’ vanilla chassez-chassez-brushthroughleap combo.
It was at least this bad. Probably worse.
So I shall spend this week firming up my chaines turns and remembering how to jete (I think I’ve sorted myself now; on the way home from class, I realized I was doing some kind of chasse-gallope-jete crap). (Edit: I decided to mark my jetes this afternoon in order to get my arms coordinated with my legs. It seems to have helped, and my arms got all dancer-y, which was kind of exciting in its own way — they were like, “Oh, you mean we’re doing this! We remember this!”. I will have to open up and try jetes for reals downstairs in a bit. We totally do not have a jete-way in our upstairs right now.)
Got a few useful corrections, which was cool. I like our ballet teacher.
In other news, next Saturday I definitely need to eat a better breakfast (Today’s breakfast? ONE LITTLE APPLE. Because in the morning, I can be kind of dumb.) and pack a lunch. I definitely found myself in Food Crisis Mode during the epic shopping trip that followed class this morning. I had to tell myself out loud and repeatedly that I did not need an entire 1-pound bag of M&Ms. I did make it home and we had leftover spaghetti for lunch, so that worked out okay.
That’s it for now. Keep the leather side down.
First, the Review
I owe a number of longer-term reviews on a number of topics. I figured I’d start with my most recent major bike acquisition, the 2013 GT Karakoram 2.0 now lovingly dubbed “Mountain Monster.”
At first glance, the Karakoram seems as unlike my Fuji Roubaix (AKA “The Fearsome Fuji”) as it gets. It is not really all that light (though it’s also not all that heavy). It’s much more upright. It has clearance for some pretty big tires. In short, it’s a mountain bike — and its mountain-bike breeding really shines through when you take it off-road.
That said, some of the qualities that make the Karakoram shine on the trails are qualities it shares with the Fearsome Fuji: sharp handling and the kind of mind-reading feel that make the Roubaix my absolute favorite road ride.
You can absolutely fly this bike by the seat of your pants. It responds brilliantly to countersteering. I relish the experience of railing sharp turns on the Karakoram by dropping my weight deep into the outside pedal and then just letting the bike kind of lie down towards the inside of the turn*. Exceptional balance means you can give it a lot of lean before you begin to feel like you might be risking road rash.
In short, the Karakoram is wildly nimble. I am far from being an accomplished off-road rider, but during this year’s Death March attempt, I rode the Karakoram through and around and over all kinds of stuff. At one point, my rear wheel slipped on a branch hidden under some muck and the bike’s responsive handling saved me from careening into a tree. A better rider would even have made it out of that tight spot without stopping (again, I’m pretty half-baked off-road). Simply put, the bike is well-balanced and responsive: ideal qualities in any road or off-road ride**.
This nimble handling also translates well to an urban environment. While I don’t think the Karakoram will ever be my go-to century bike, as an urban on-road commuter, it actually gets the job done with a fair bit of elan. Road obstacles can be smartly avoided, and the hydraulic brakes’ stopping power comes in mightily handy when oblivious pedestrians or drivers fumble into the road without looking.
That said, in terms of rider experience on the commutes, there’s a trade-off involved: a more upright position offers an awesome visual field and helps keep you visible to drivers, but it also means that you catch wind — lots of it! Even when tucked down over the bars, I’m still in a more upright configuration than I’m used to, and I definitely feel the air resistance. In less-aerodynamic winter kit, it can feel like riding in a parachute.
Coupled with Maxxis’ 2.10″ Aspen tires — which are fantastic on trails but can really soak up your effort on the road — this means that the bike is slower to accelerate and slower on the climbs. Yesterday, on a Karakoram commute, I rode a not-insignificant overpass climb into a stiff headwind and found myself really fighting to maintain a pace above 10 MPH. Make no mistake — this bike climbs, but it does so slowly, and seems to prefer to do so in tiny little gears. That said, in the right gear combo, pretty stiff climbs can seem fairly effortless — as long as you’re not pushing for speed. I suspect the right tires could go a long way towards mitigating this effect if you plan primarily to commute or tour on-road on a Karakoram 2.0.
Commuting-wise, between geometry and fat tires, the Karakoram encourages its rider to spin smaller gears. That’s good for me, because I remain an inveterate masher, and spinning will indubitably leave more in the legs for ballet class 😛
Coupling a high cadence with a low gear, it’s not difficult to maintain a 14 – 16 MPH pace on the flats on this bike once you’re up to speed. Likewise, the enormous gearing range means you can basically ride it up a wall, albeit slowly. Still beats the heck out of walking. Moreover, the bike descends like a freaking rocket.
Shifting is crisp and responsive (and continues to function, with varying responsiveness, even in mucky conditions). Braking is nigh miraculous: the hydraulic disc brakes that come stock on the Karakoram 2.0 are both powerful and nuanced. You can modulate speed with great sensitivity and still stop fast enough to scare the crap out of yourself.
Maintenance-wise, the bike seems to be pretty much “wash-n-wear.” After the mudfest that was Death March, a good bath and a shot of chain lube got it shifting perfectly again. Shifting adjustments should be no sweat (I haven’t needed to bother yet; I took the bike in for a full shop tune-up before the race); braking adjustments will be more involved due to the hydraulics. I plan to pay someone else to mess around with those, for the most part. There are limits to my expertise, and I’m fine with that.
At around 30 pounds, the Karakoram could be lighter (and, indeed, you can lighten it up considerably with a few easy-but-pricey upgrades: lighter wheels, etc.); however, it doesn’t feel heavy when you’re riding it.
Experienced off-road racers looking for race bikes should probably look elsewhere, but for beginning-to-intermediate mountain bikers, the Karakoram offers a lot of bang for the buck. Likewise, experienced off-road racers looking for a fun bike for non-racing rides could enjoy the heck out of this machine.
In summary, the GT Karakoram 2.0 is a very solid bike at its price point (especially if you can snag one on clearance, like I did — I paid $500 for mine). As an entry-level off-road 29er, it’s stellar; likewise, it shines as a slowish-but-steady urban assualt bike. For gravel racing, I’d reserve it for races with true off-road sectors; drilling away for hours on gravel climbs or flats really asks for a less upright position.
For loaded long-distance touring, I’d say that GT’s Karakoram 2.0 is quite admirably suited (and comes drilled for a rear rack), but if you’ll be any distance from places where you’re likely to find good bike shops, you might want to swap out the hydraulic brakes for a set of mechanical ones***, which are better suited to field maintenance. Nobody wants to carry around a bleed kit and hydraulic fluid on a backroads tour of anywhere.
The 29″ wheel size could potentially make finding tires and tubes harder in some parts of the world, but the Schrader-drilled stock rims offer flexibility: more retailers carry Schrader tubes than Prestas, and you can inflate them at gas stations, with most readily-available air compressors, and with cheap, widely-available hand- and foot-pumps. You can also use Presta tubes if you snag a couple of those little converter sleeves to go over the stems. Though I actually like Presta valves better, my imaginary “world-touring” rig is specced with Schrader-friendly rims for all of these reasons.
If you’re seriously considering the purchase of a Karakoram 2.0, go ahead and pull the trigger. I doubt you’ll regret it — for the price, you’re getting a reliable, capable bike that can be dressed up for racing or down for touring in rough country, not to mention a metric shedload of fun.
Next, the Miscellany
Things to remember for Saturday’s ballet class:
This is great when you’re supposed to be on the balls of your feet — like in relèvé, for example — but kind of a bad idea when your heels are supposed to be on the ground. I suspect this is the child of my favored gymnastic discipline — floor exercise — coupled with cycling, though I’m also one of those freaks who run on their toes. Or, well, jog. I don’t know if you would call what I do these days “running.” Anyhoo! I remembered on Monday (after class, of course ._.) that standing flat-footed with your weight in your toes doesn’t work so well in ballet.
If your foot is flat on the floor, you want to keep your weight in your heel; it stabilizes the whole column. If your heel is on the floor but your weight is in the ball of your foot, all kinds of craziness happens, and then you sprain your ankle.
Other things to remember:
In other news:
That’s it for now. Keep whatever side down is supposed to be down 😛
Notes
*Sure, I’m gonna lose some knee skin this way sooner or later, but the soaring feeling is worth it.
**…Also great qualities in a life partner or best friend.
***You can’t go wrong with Avid’s BB7s.
In this case, that’s Louisville Ballet School, not Local Bike Shop.
Needless to say, while I have not forgotten everything, there is much I shall have to relearn in terms of, well, terms. Also balance. There will be much practicing of Barre exercises at home. Furthermore, I have reverted to the level of confusion about port-des-bras that I enjoyed when I was, like, seven – only now I understand my own learning style a lot better, so with a little study that should resolve pretty quickly. I am also evidently not great at counting to four while moving my feet, but I think that will resolve itself as we progress.
Fortunately, I have somehow retained more flexibility than I expected – cycling and running can really tighten things up.
Also fortunately, Denis survived his first class and went along gamely for as long as he could. He got dehydrated and took a break during the across-the-floor part only class. For someone with no dance background who normally gets very little continuous exercise, I think he did very well. I also managed to concentrate on what I was doing instead of worrying about him the whole time. Next time, we will bring water and he will feel a little more at home than he did this time.
We did not end class with reverence, but we did give our lovely teacher a round of applause afterwards. If I catch up the finances this week I can go to class on Saturday as well. I am very much looking forward to that!
That’s it for now. Keep the rubber leather side down.
Strengths This Week:
Flexibility
Points to Work On:
Frappe
Arms!
Chaines Turns
Edit: Sorry about the crazy typos. I wrote this entry last night on my phone, which has a little thing that I like to call “Autocorrupt.” I’ve been fixing and re-fixing it ever since…
Just a quick check-in today.
We’re having a snow day, which is sort of irrelevant for me since I don’t have classes on Monday anyway. Denis and I got the walk and driveway shoveled this morning, and now the remaining scrim of crusty gritty ice-snow stuff is melting off as the sun hits it. The world looks all pretty and properly winter-y.
I’m starting to feel a little bit more like myself these days. I’m working on damage control for the time being and hoping that things will remain on a more even keel until I can start to get this under control.
The tough part now is kind of accepting where I am right now. In his book Dark Nights of the Soul, author Thomas Moore writes about the appreciating the “night sea journey” for what it is — a concept that fits neatly with Zen teachings about being here, now.
It isn’t always comfortable to be where you are. It definitely isn’t comfortable to be where I am right now, though it is more comfortable to be here, now than to be where I was, like, a week ago.
Of course I want to rush forward to “the good part.” I want to get to the next phase where I feel okay or even good. I want to get to spring, so I can get out on the bike and ride. I want to get there.
Thing is, here is where I am now. The trick is to be here, now — to be in this when and this where — and not be quite so focused on getting to the next phase, the next destination.
Shamelessly stolen from Hendy Mp/Solent News via The Telegraph. Captions mine.
In other news, tomorrow I’ll be handing in all my reams of research paperwork. Friday evening we head up to Bedford to irresponsibly watch cable TV in a hotel room feast upon the bones of our enemies attempt to not die during Death March (which is on Saturday).
Neither Timothy nor I have spent any time on the bike worth speaking of, so this year’s “race,” as it were, might be interesting. Conveniently, I will get to knock out both my first significant ride of the year and my first (and probably my only) race of the year. I’ll leave it to you, gentle readers, to determine whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
I’ll report back on it at some juncture, though evidently I’m horrible at getting race reports posted. I definitely won’t be posting directly after the race, because we’ll have just enough time to shower, change, and haul bacon back to town to catch The Trocks at the Brown Theater. Any way, I’m sure I’ll manage to fill you all in on whether I live or die. That is, assuming I live. Which is probable.
In other, other news, I made my first lasagna ever last night, and it was gooooooood. Needless to say, a recipe that I’m happy to have in my repertoire (Denis is a good teacher!) and one I plan to make again.
That’s it for now. Nothing else to report.
Rubber side down, everyone 🙂
I must make a confession, so here goes:
I am a horrible runner.
This isn’t to say I have a terrible, flailing, inefficient stride or anything. I mean, I’m sure there’s room for improvement, but my basic run mechanics are okay.
It’s just that, well .. I’m slow and I’m somewhat out of shape (amazing how one can routinely ride pretty serious distances and still be unable to put in a decent time on a 5k!).
As a kid I was a good runner (though patently awful at pacing myself) until about fifth grade, when my asthma suddenly decided that my running days were pretty much over. Before I could get it under control and get back into running, I got into bikes, then walking, then bikes again — and then, for a while, into running again, when I had a big dog and lived near a reservoir with a nice trail around it.
Then I moved back to the city, and my big doggie stayed in the country, and I had no doggie to run with me, and I didn’t have any nice trails nearby, and kvetch, moan, whine. You know the drill. And then I got back into bikes again and running, well, just kind of slipped off the radar. In 2013, I went on a grand total of one — yes, one — run. One. Oh, wait, maybe two. I think Michelle and I went running once, but that might actually have been in 2012.
It wasn’t that I didn’t intend to take it up again. Just that … you know. I’m, like, a cyclist. And running is dangerous if you’re a cyclist. It’s, like, a gateway sport that can lead to, you know … swimming. And Triathlons. But most importantly, running can mean carving time out of your cycling schedule, and that’s just … you know. Wrong.
I’m joking, of course.
Mostly.
The past couple of years, I’ve felt the running bug acting up again. Thing is (and I realize that admitting this might lead to the loss of my Cyclist Card or whatever) I actually like running. I joke that I could never be a triathlete because I like running, riding bikes, and swimming, and most triathletes seem to passionately hate at least one of the three. I have always found running a very satisfying activity: meditative in its own right, and well worth doing. I just haven’t done a very good job making it happen.
This year, I decided to think about why, and I realized that part of the problem is simple: I stink at running. I stink at running even more than I stink at racing bikes.
Then something changed. Some little part of my attitude, somewhere, decided that it’s okay if I stink at running. I mean, it’s not like I have anything to prove, right? And running is one of those sports where everyone is ecstatic for everyone who finishes a race, which I think is awesome (there is less of that in bike racing). And also the only way to get better at it is to, you know, go out and do it.
Moreover, at least a few of us refer to running as “the sport of truth.” There’s no coasting downhill; there’s no picking an easier gear. There’s just you and your legs and feet and whatever’s under and in front of them. So, basically, running gives you a really keen sense of where you are fitness-wise. If you’re struggling on a climb, you can neither spin the granny gear nor mash the big gears ’til your eyes bleed in hope of making it to the top faster. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, so to speak.
So I have decided to go ahead and stink at running. My schedule this semester allows me some non-commuting days (two per schoolweek for the first six weeks, then three thereafter), and I think that rather than riding on all of those days, I’m going to start out by running on two of them. The goal will be to build up to running three days per week; maybe more if the bike schedule and my overall health will allow it.
I don’t mind being a horrible runner. It’s funny how that works. I know I’ll get better at it, but if I’m never awesome at running, that’s fine. I can go on being a terrible runner, maybe even get myself a t-shirt printed up with some dinosaur-esque Linnean sounding name that means “Terrible Runner” on it.
Today is a run day. Wish me luck.
YouTube: BOSU Balance Series
danseur ignoble 