20-minutes with 8 speed intervals.
Am becoming a fan of this concentrated training style. As I chirpily informed my parents when I returned, "It's like twice the workout in half the time!" Their cold, sleepy stares over the rims of their coffee cups let me know it was too early for endorphins.
Endorphins aren't why I started running, but they are largely why I stuck with it.
The inception of my running story is neither orginal nor noble: I wanted to lighten up for the role of bridesmaid in a friend's wedding. Then I got hooked on the way it improves life in other ways: steadier moods, excellent sleeps, a warmer embrace of mornings, and an upturn in my overall outlook on life. I would go so far as to say that running makes me a better person.
But I should clarify: my inception as a willing runner began recently, with the wedding goal. The real running history goes back much further, and into a much darker place. Middle School. Early 90s. Back then we were forced to run. Likely, this was for the benefit of our health, but I remember thinking it was simply a way for those in power to defeat our spirits. The broken are always easier to control.
They tried to break us with road runs, which were hot, gravelly, and unending. And the Fun Runs, which never, not once, lived up to their name. And then there were the ill-conceived Milk Runs, in which the incentive was a lukewarm carton of milk at the end of a stinking hot run. The logic behind these runs must have had something to do with building pubescent bone health, but the whole thing seems wrong, like buying shrimp from a roadside van in August.
"Grafton! Laps! Now!"
I can still hear the militant shouts of the PE teacher echoing within the scarred walls of my psyche. Obviously, a great deal of healing has occured over the years for me to be able to run willingly now.
Choosing to run has become an act of subversion, even -- proof of a fortified spirit.
Plus, I get coffee on my running days, and that trumps milk, no question.
Love this post. But, since you enjoyed the hoity-toity benefits of Middle School at The Rock, rather than The Swamp, I must add to your litany of ill-conceived runs with: The Dyke Run; The Mud Run; and The "Lagoon" Run. Because nothing says fun like running around septic pools.
ReplyDeleteYa, no amount of finessing can change the true nature of that landscape ...
ReplyDeleteThanks for the memories, Middle School Run Coordinators! Because puberty clearly wasn't painful enough.
LOL! Wow, memories of running in gym class. Do you remember the Canada health challenges or whatever they were when you had to do all sorts of different events and then you won badges. The long distance run was always the one to drag me down!! But now, like you, I love it :)
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