For the first time since I was a bloody teenager— and let’s be honest, I don’t even know if I did it back then — I ran 10 km in under 60 minutes. While I should probably be all happy about breaking that barrier, I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. It felt a little too much like… I don’t know, work.
I’m now at 309.6 km during this calendar year; that leaves me a shade under 31% complete on the 2014 goal of running 1,000 km. Some quick math tells me I’m about 30 km ahead of schedule despite having missed nearly two weeks with the flu in late March.
As a new runner, I need all the help I can get. Here, I’ll talk about the songs on my running playlist and what makes them — and me — tick.
Playlist Song #1
Lady Gaga — Poker Face
Look, I’m no fan of Top 40, but when I’m looking to hoof my lard ass from point A to point B, sometimes I need some motivation. Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, better known as Lady Gaga, happens to put together tunes that get me moving. Comparisons to Madonna are obvious, even trite — Gaga, seemingly a personification of New York ambition, emerged from a Catholic background to manufacture image-based, sexually charged pop music — but even with Born This Way being pretty much a carbon copy of Express Yourself, I find just as much Freddie Mercury in her work as Material Girl.
Poker Face runs at 120 beats per minute, which sites like jog.fm suggests will pull you in at about eight minutes per kilometre, but I find personally that it’s the perfect driving beat for 5:45 klicks.
Album: The Fame
Release date: 2008 Beats per minute: 120 Subject: Cards / gambling Content warning: Sexual innuendo / repeated use in chorus of profanity (so subtle is Gaga’s insertion of the f-word, however, that the overwhelming majority of radio stations do not use the edited version in their broadcasts) Video:
It was my longest run yet. 19.34km. And holy hell, is it ever a long way.
About 17km into the run, I said hello to Mr Oppenheimer at the entrance to Stanley Park. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
I went out early Sunday morning in order to get my body used to pre-breakfast activity. Normally I hit the trail in the middle of the day — teaching classes that either start at 8am or end after 10pm doesn’t lend itself to morning runs — but with the half marathon in May I’ll be out the door before sunrise and through the starting line at 7am. If I haven’t done at least a handful of runs at that time of the morning, it’ll be hard to motivate on race day.
It started, last year, almost as a lark. Running, that is. I’ve already cursed the good doctor Rob as loud as I can, but I have to admit: I’m not hating every minute of it. The Central Valley Greenway is actually quite pleasant (when it’s not so flooded that ducks take to its surface, that is), and I’ve found the few times I’ve taken to circuitous routes (short city routes or even 400-metre tracks under lighting) much more calming for the repetition than I had predicted.
So here’s the public presentation of my goal. It ain’t much in the grand scheme of things; some people do ultras, and others travel the world entering multiple marathons and raising outrageous amounts of money for charity. Me, I’ve just challenged myself to run 1,000 km during the 2014 calendar year.
My running goal is to complete 1,000km during the 2014 calendar year. I’m 20km ahead of schedule as of St Paddy’s Day.
One foot in front of the other, over and over and over again, the endless trudgery of running kilometre after kilometre hypnotises otherwise intelligent people into thinking it’s somehow good for them. But it isn’t. It’s just not. It can’t be.
Running ruins your knees, stresses your back and makes you gaunt & desperate for semi-digested fistfuls of proteinate goo. But it’s not the Walking Dead cosplay that worries me the most. It’s the ice baths. Any activity that inspires a person to immerse their tired, battered lower body into a tub of ice water has to be the work of Satan himself. Come on, people — this is torture we’re talking about.
I hate running. Hate it. Like, with all my soul. Related: anyone got some whitening strips? Yeesh.
I started running last summer — irregularly, I’ll admit — as part of my training for our world record-setting Table Hockey Extravaganza. I worked out with the fine folks at Fitness Science Corporation, who offered to make us fit and trim for the attempt. I was fine with the squats, the situps, and the Russian twists. Hell, I even agreed to a regimen of freakin’ burpess. But somehow, evil genius Dr Rob Tarzwell convinced me to run recreationally.
It started innocently enough: “Hey, wanna run 4k after you finish those push-ups?” How could I say no? Look at this face, I dare you.
Rob Tarzwell celebrates his new addiction to setting world records in obscure Canadian pastimes. Part of his genius is that doesn’t look evil. Photo by Clint Trahan for Pucked in the Head.
Six months later, and I’m training for my first half marathon. My iPhone app (RunKeeper) tells me what to do, and these days I’m putting in well over 20km a week and soaking my stanky tootsies in a demonic arctic tea while reading up on VO2 max and heel strikes. DAMN YOU, TARZWELL!
Just like running, Dr Rob’s evil genius has no discernible beginning or end. It’s eternal, and no matter how hard you fight it, it will beat you into submission and assimilate your ass into the bizarro world of DAMN YOU,TARZWELL!
I originally thought running might be a cheaper way to exercise than the old trap of unused gym memberships and seasonal beer league registration charges. Need I say it? DAMN YOU, TARZWELL!Money flies out the window, dammit, on neon Coolmax, GU Roctane gel and a rotation of two to three pairs of Mizuno sneakers at any given time, not to mention race fees that include ‘free’ tech shirts but then plop oxygen deprived finishers in the midst of tents and tables full of retailers hawking yet more gear.
Okay, okay. I’m getting fitter and faster. Yeah, I think more clearly and to make sure I’m ready for the next run, I tend to watch what I eat more carefully. But that doesn’t mean I enjoy the rhythm, the fresh air or the fact that compression calf sleeves — no word of a lie — make me feel ten years younger. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m thankful for that push out the door that bastard gave me last year; in pure Tarzwellian fashion, he doesn’t even run more than twice a week his bad self.
Look, I’ve got to go. RunKeeper just told me I have 6.4km to do tonight. Damn you, Tarzwell.
