Running on ink and paper

I’m a little surprised to find that the new issue of Runner’s World is still sitting on my reading stand, unopened after a week.

There have been times when the magazine was greeted at the mailbox like an old friend and read immediately from cover to cover.

I’m sure I’ll get around to reading this issue, but I’m wondering why the thrill is gone.  One reason, I suppose, is the existence of digital media. The Runner’s World website is a more familiar hangout for me these days than is the paper and ink version of the brand.  The Master’s forum is a particular favorite, a place I often visit a couple times a week.

Back in the day, the magazine was all we had, and it was a lot—great articles on technique, inspirational runners, events and gear. I even enjoyed the ads. The same is true today; the magazine’s content has never been better. The editorial team has mission, focus and personality.

Perhaps it’s just that I’ve outlived the publication’s demographic focus. For one thing,  I don’t ever expect to see a running geezer on the cover. (And, that’s fine. We know what we look like.)  And I pretty much know what to do with my diet, how to treat my sore knee, and where I’m going to race this season.

My lukewarm response to the recent issue notwithstanding, I’ve just glanced at the cover call-outs on the magazine again, and I’m feeling inspired to crack this baby open.  See you later online.

Running ahead of your demons

A good friend of mine took up cycling many years ago and pursued the sport with a kind of manic intensity, as I understand it.  Excessive riding seems to have led to a chronic, extremely painful groin injury, which in turn set off a long stretch of depression.  All pleasure drained from his life and he was unable to work. He became suicidal.

The darkness was punctuated with periods of mania, in which he spent money wildly and interviewed strangers on the street. Now diagnosed as bipolar, he is using medication and other pursuits to hold things together. His cycling days appear to be over. 

My sense is that cycling for him was a form of self-medication, and it worked for a long while. As long as you’re moving, the demons can’t quite catch up with you.

Are there those who use running to keep a step ahead of depression and other mental disorders?

A member of the Runner’s World Masters forum uses a signature on his posts, “Cheaper than therapy.”   Another forum member commented recently on one of my posts that the peace to be found in running “is better than meditation.”

Without running, I’m pretty sure some of own demons would have overtaken me by now. The trick, I suppose, is to balance the physical with the mental or spiritual part of the form. If you try to run too hard, for too long, you can get caught from the other direction, as I believe my friend did. 

The world without a watch

Once you get used to running with a GPS sports watch, it’s hard to imagine the world without it.  My fine Nike Plus went on the blink the other day, the computer deciding to deny its existence all of a sudden.

Sadly, I wound up using nearly half of a vacation day trying to diagnose and fix the issue myself. The dalliance with DIY ended with an hour on the phone talking with tech support. (Though we failed to fix the problem, I will be given free service or a replacement watch.)

The incident has made me stop and think about the nature of time as relates to running. At this point in life, why should I care at all about my metrics, or the documentation that I ran at a certain place in the world? 

“How we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives,” writes Annie Dillard in The Writing Life. A corollary perhaps is how we measure our time is how we measure how lives.

If  you’re watching time tick away every day, well, that’s your life. Running without a watch for a while will be a good thing, even therapeutic I think.  Maybe the moments will  become more meaningful, more lasting, more full of life.

How else might one measure a run? Today, running watchless in downtown Des Moines, I had these thoughts that seemed to have bounded beyond the clock:

• This Iowa sky, and this Des Moines skyline, well there it is and here I am.

• This muddy Des Moines River water rushing to the sea. What a wet spring it’s been. 

• There are too many people exiting the County Court House all at once. Off the sidewalk people!

• I can smell a cigarette from a greater distance than I can see the thing in hand.

• How many of these birds can I ID? Almost all of them so far!

• Could one dance around a rat in this alley at mid-day? 

• Is the song in my head an original tune? 

• I know that guy; I see him all the time; he runs darn fast for an older guy. 

• What does it feel like to run today, in fact to exist at all?

I’m finished the day's run with no time clocked and no place plotted on a map--but I have had what it is, the thing itself. 

Seven minutes of exercise is all it takes?

To a long distance runner, it might seem heretical that any sort of meaningful exercise could be accomplished in 7 minutes. Seventy minutes maybe. Seven minutes is barely long enough to warm up muscles and speed up your heart, right? 

But, that was before I read an article, “The Scientific 7-minute workout," and gave the idea a try-out.

The technique centers on some recent exercise research that proved the value of high-intensity interval training.  Interval training, so the story goes, even a few minutes of it, “produces molecular changes within muscles comparable to those of several hours of running or bike riding.”

The regimen requires you to proceed through 12 familiar exercises (pushups, lunges, jumping jacks, etc.), thirty seconds each, with 10 second intervals. You’re supposed to perform at a level that is “unpleasant”—about an 8 on a 1-10 discomfort scale.

The only piece of equipment you need is a chair.

I’ve been testing the idea mainly after work on a busy day, when there’s time for little else in the way of a workout. 

The whole process takes less than ten minutes.  Change your shoes, set the timer on a smartphone, grab a sturdy chair, and you’re ready to go.

The only apparent failing in the experiment for me so far is an inability to run through all 12 exercises in seven minutes. Even though I think I’m counting the 30s properly in my head, when the timer goes off, I’m usually still on exercise nine or ten. I think I can get better at this; it’s a personal challenge to do all twelve in exactly seven minutes. 

But the upshot is that it works, if huffing and puffing and general discomfort is any measure.

And, when you’re done—lying on the floor after a side plank finale, you do indeed feel about like you have run hard for an hour.

Read the New York Times Magazine story here: The Scientific 7-MinuteWorkout

Gone fishin'

We are what we repeatedly do; excellence is a habit, Aristotle said.  But to every time there is a season, the runner would think.  And there is a time to take a break from running. Or is that a good thing?

For me, it was time to take a week off from work and running to go fishing with two great friends from college. Tim has graciously provided a place in the Wisconsin north woods, and Phil brings his large countenance, local wisdom and various culinary delights direct from the land of his dairy farm. 

The three of us start dreaming about the whole thing in January, and when the time comes to get away it seems only right to put away all the things of routine daily life–including the running shoes.

Travel only a about marathon deep into the woods gets you off the beaten path.  In one area of our retreat, I  bet you could boat through some fifty square miles of lakes, streams and flowages without much interference.  You can spot eagles, beaver, bear and rare warblers and maybe catch a bunch of nice fish, if you’re lucky. 

In that world of woods and water I never felt too badly about not running. In fact, I rarely thought of it. It’s good enough exercise standing up in the front of a modest fishing boat, running the trolling motor and trying to flick a perfect cast toward the shore.  A couple times I practiced some tai chi exercises on a dock while watching a bobber and worm in the water.

After five days on the water I can still feel that pleasant rocking of the boat in my bones, and the effects on the leg muscles.  It works, getting away for a week and not a taking a single run.

Back home today running felt fresh, and I’m eager again to do what I repeatedly do. 

The best exercise ever

The whole thing came entirely out of the blue. In an annual physical at the company where I work, the doctor was finishing up his routine and asked how I was feeling. I said great except for a sore knee. I told him I was worried the injury was going to keep me from running in an upcoming half marathon.

He proceeded to recommend an exercise he called 10x10x20s, which he said thought would help me get through the race.

You lie on you back, raise your leg ten inches off the floor and hold it for ten seconds.  Twenty  reps on each side.  Try to remember to do the “tens” after each run, he said. Then he gave me the name of a good sports doctor in town.

As an aside, next I discover that he's a runner and we’re both competing in the Quebec Marathon, a long-shot coincidence, given the event is a great distance from Des Moines and hardly well known in our parts as any sort of destination race.

But, what a great stroke of luck to have met this fine fellow. His sound advice led me to a successful finish of the race with minimal knee pain. I’ve continued with the exercise as often as I can remember to do so. My favorite time is when watching TV rather than right after a run.

A few years ago, I learned a routine from an excellent physical therapist who was trying to help me stabilize my form. That one’s done while lying on your side. You wear an ankle weight and lift your leg from a little behind your other leg, eight reps three times. She told me it’s probably the single best routine for what I needed at the time.

These exercises aren't miracle cures, but I suspect they kept me going at a time when it was starting to feel like I was coming to the end of the road with long-distance running.

Mr. Mortality on the run

Speaking of the rare good weather one day last weekend, my niece Lindsey commented over the phone that “you don’t even want to talk about it.”  Her implication may be that if we bring something to our full attention it somehow ruins its pleasure.

One thing in this life we mostly don't want to talk about: We know that each day, each run, brings us closer to the final finish line.  Our measuring of effort, our fanaticism about long-distance training is a race against time and mortality. Not an original thought, of course, but we’re just talking here.

One reason running is a great metaphor for the human condition is because of  its routine finiteness. We put a clock to our efforts for a reason. The faster we finish a race or run, the more time there is left for the next run.

But “not talking about it” is a one way, maybe the best way, we address our limited run in this life, isn’t it? Forget about time. Run like an animal—in the moment, no memory and no mind for the future.

A favorite famous quote is one that bears on the matter: “You don’t quit running because you get old, you get old because you quit running.”

The idea has become a motto for me, because there are always good reasons, some sensible, to quit running—long distance running, at least.  Right now, for me, it’s chronic knee pain, but it could always have been something—plantar fasciitis, IT band issues, a close call with a car, and such.

There is another thought, too—that our deeper interpretations of running can be something that helps others. “The best that can come from contemplation of mortality, perhaps, is a kind of wisdom that can give others strength—not by answering questions, like those best-sellers which claims to tell you what happens after you see the white light, but by asking questions honestly,” writes Adam Kirsch in The New Yorker  of  the book “My Bright Abyss,” by Christian Wiman.

The tai chi teacher, Dr. Paul Lam, talks about how the martial arts are something you can practice all your life, that he has 90-year-olds still studying with him.  I like that idea—that there are pursuits in this life we can take to the end. I hope running is one. But I really don’t want to talk about it.

No knee is not a good thing

Yesterday, I talked with my neighbor Chuck who is awaiting knee replacement surgery at the Mayo Clinic. This will be the six or seventh attempt to get it right. He’s actually lost track. Both knees are shot, and he’s in a lot of pain much of time.

The man literally has no left knee, no nothing, holding his tibia and femur together currently as far as I understand, and he's pretty much in constant pain, it seems. Before they can operate again, the doctors are waiting for an infection to clear up, which has lingered for about a month already.

The damage to Chuck’s knees came from a lifetime of factory work on a hard surface floor.  I suspect  his case is not entirely  unlike the sort of overuse injury that life-long long distance running can produce.

About two years ago, an orthopedic surgeon suggested I may have damaged my knee enough that I’d soon be looking at knee replacement surgery.  In training for a second marathon in 2010-2011, I pulled up with a torn meniscus and a bony edema. The doctor implied it might be time to quit running, and certainly to lay off the marathons.

Since then, I’ve run a couple half marathons and a number of shorter races.  I’ve been able to keep running by taking up a mostly self-designed rehab combining shorter distances, slower speeds, more rest, specific leg and core strengthening exercises, and a daily dose of glucosamine sulfate.

Mostly, the program has worked. But, a week ago, the darn knee started feeling pretty sore again. A physical therapist once described  that such an injury is rather like having a hang nail in the joint.  It just never quite goes away.

When the pain crops up, as it does from time to time, the words of that surgeon resurface and I wonder if I’m doing the right thing by keeping after it. And, when I see my neighbor Chuck wheeling around in a motorized cart, not even able to get around on crutches, well, there get to be moments when I wonder what it would be like not to have a real knee, or no knee at all.

Chuck’s going in for surgery next Sunday, we hope. Good luck, Chuck!

Elegy for Boston

I took a long coffee break this morning to watch the later stages of the Boston Marathon.  While television hasn't perfected its coverage of a marathon, the program was amazing in its depiction of the drama possible in sport. I was inspired to take a short run at noon to kind of commune with all the folks running the big race today.

Later, when I heard word of the tragedy, I watched the new images from the scene and saw the world in a whole different, but familiar way.

All of a sudden the evil of the world again dwarfed the drama of sport. Malignant forces exploded from the sidelines of our lives, as they have fallen from the sky or surfaced from below. The awful irony of people dying and suffering "severe trauma" to their legs at a foot race is finally ineffable: three dead and more than a hundred injured, the blood rippling through the lives of so many others.

The Boston tragedy recalls how everything in sport can suddenly become so inconsequential, in the way that in the wake of 9/11 pro football seemed like such a trivial thing.

Long distance running is often seen as a metaphor for life, and today, for me, it resonated as a reminder that despite all we do the finish line is not ours to set.

But, here’s hoping that Boston will find justice, healing and a redemptive race in the year ahead.

Barefoot in the sand

Today, on another chilly April-is-the-cruelest-month day in Iowa, I feel like I’m coming down with a cold. My left knee aches. There’s a little voice whispering that I’ll never run well again, or perhaps never run at all. The week’s forecast is for rain, rain, rain.

Ah, the frailty of the spirit sometimes.

Was it only a couple weeks ago that I was running barefoot in the sand along the Pacific? Better yet, I was spending time with my granddaughter Neena  on the southern California oceanfront. It was an utter joy to usher her down to the ocean’s edge where she viewed vast water for the first time. We took off our shoes, walked in the sand and listened to the waves roll in. (Those are Neena's feet in the photo, feeling ocean sand for the first time.) Normally an expressive little thing, she was quiet and in awe of the scene—as was I.

Later in the week I began experimenting with barefoot running on the beach. First a few hundred yards, then a mile or so, and finally a couple 5K type runs.  There was an evolution of technique—an adjustment for the canter of the beach, an effort to keep to the harder sand of a receding wave, a slightly shorter stride, etc.  The further distances came without even a twinge of complaint from arch, knee, or hip.

The experience was almost otherworldly -- simple motion, wave, breath, and sky.  It is the feeling of being a child again.

A recent study of barefoot Kenyan runners cited in Runner’s World (story) describes their environment as being a “firm sand surface.” I think I experienced something of that foot-surface feeling in California.

Is there a way to emulate a barefoot run on the beach or Kenyan sand?  On a lark today, I jumped on the treadmill in socks and ran for fifteen minutes.  Interesting experiment. The nagging knee was calm, the feet tilted to a mid- and front-foot landing, and the energy felt like, well, a little like running barefoot on the beach.

Although  I can’t imagine running barefoot anywhere but along the ocean (or on the treadmill), its appeal is now clear. And, it makes one wonder if a more minimal shoe would resonate some of the same experience. Certainly seems like something to explore.

Now, toting Neena along the Pacific. That’s something I wish I could figure out how to do more often, too.

Eat like you are poor

A response to my blog entry last week on diet and running produced this idea in the Runner’s World master’s forum:

“….the best advice I ever got on running diet was ‘eat like you are poor.’ I try to limit myself to simple foods (beans, pasta, lean meats, peanut butter, whole grain bread and fruits & vegetables),” said the forum member, “backothepack.”

For me, the idea of adopting a diet of the poor aligns with the new Catholic Pope’s pronouncement that the church be dedicated to the poor. It's just a bit of serendipity. Yesterday, he told journalists gathered at the Vatican that he chose his papal name because St. Francis of Assisi was ‘a man of poverty and a man of peace.”

He continued, "How I would like a poor Church for the poor."

I’m not a Catholic, but this is an inspiring belief—perhaps a guide both for running and religion, body and spirit. (It was heartening, too, that Pope Francis blessed non-Catholic journalists as well as non-believers at this event—basically covering all my bases.)

In last week’s blog, I wondered if one could simplify dietary choices by asking, “Is this something the Dalai Lama would eat?” Perhaps this was a pretentious leap from a mundane matter of daily living to the ineffable concerns of the spirit.

Still, what we eat (and what we do for exercise) has a lot to say about how we live and how we take care of the earth. So I’ll take another leap of faith and say it now seems possible to ask for guidance in another way: “Is this something Pope Francis would eat?”

Eat without thinking too much

The new issue of Runner's World includes a special package on weight loss, which you soon discover is as much about diet as it is exercise.

There's lots of good advice on what to eat, and when, if you want to drop some weight and improve your performance. The section provides a series of practical tips leading you through training for various lengths of races--from 5Ks to marathons.

Salient points for this older runner:

* The cover callout is tempting: Lose 5 pounds. That seems reasonable, especially with spring at the doorstep. Maybe it's time for the heavy winter brews and second helpings to go by the wayside for a while.

* Don't eat stuff before you run that will require you to carry toilet paper.

* Don't think that long-distance running gives you the right to pig out afterwards, or lie on the couch the rest of the day for that matter.

* No matter what you do with your diet, don't expect to look like any of the runners pictured in this magazine. Not ever.

* Some things I should consider eating related to running fuel: graham crackers, plain Greek yogurt, an egg or two more often in the morning, and gummy bears.

* Enjoy eating. I don't think I can start counting calories at this point in my life. Maybe I can just ask myself, "Would the Dalai Lama eat this?" Good food is transcendent; look at those bananas.

Trinity River Heron

This that Fort Worth has for a river

flows with the detritus of last night’s

heavy rain still.

I take the fork to a path of crushed shale,

ignoring the new downpour,

and the flash of lightning.

Too late for shelter or safety,

more the momentum of long ignorance,

of course, than any bit of bravery.

Well, hell, let the young stand under bridges

and wait out the storm!

At the low-level dam of the Trinity, across the freeway

from the Fort Worth skyline waits the great blue heron

standing aslant in the shallows, head tilted comically toward the current.

Imagine in that fixed gaze the focus of its cares in the water:

what in its mind’s eye is reflected of the creature on the trail,

the slow upright figure like so many all day running upstream?

A walk in the park

Last Monday, between arrival in New York City and the first business meeting of the week lay a chance to run in Central Park, something that had always seemed appealing as a great destination run. Maybe I pictured myself as a New York Road Runner’s Club kind of guy—fit, busy, urbane.

My colleague Curt (photo, left) was pleased to be able to squeeze in a quick training session with me for his upcoming Iron Man Triathlon. And wow that’s another story….

So we took a cab from midtown Manhattan to save time and my energy.  The idea was for a brisk five or six miles in the park, then a quick return to business.

It was all going to plan. Except that I had to walk--twice.

I’d rather have not had to do that in front of Curt and the Columbia University women’s cross-country team. 

But, I’m trying to give myself a pardon. The excuses quickly collected:

Central Park is hilly, which I didn’t realize; it was cold and raining; I’m feeling chilled; and I’m still recovering from a diabolical virus.  Haven’t I arrived at a point in my life where I don’t have to prove anything to Curt and  Columbia?  Give that virus another chance and you’ll spend a week here in New York feeling like the devil again.

Sure, I could have pushed through those relatively thin walls of fatigue on the hills and kept my Central Park memory free of an asterisk. 

But isn’t there finally a bit of wisdom in taking a break when you want?  Shouldn't life ultimately allow a walk in the park?

A wind-aided run--and life

Yesterday, on a blustery morning, I finagled things so I could run with the wind at my back. Over the hour, there were a few occasions when I caught a crosswind and even a head wind a time or two, but basically I bounced along with 15-20 miles per hour of Nature helping out. 

The wind-aided 10K was a pleasant change of pace on a winter’s day; with the wind an ally, you can kind of glide along and work on your form.

With lesser strain, perhaps you have more energy for thought. I pondered the meaning of the whole thing. Is wind-aided running fair? Does the day deserve an asterisk?

One could salvage the thought, too, that the trip was a good metaphor for my life. The day before, I stumbled upon an unmarked file in my office and opened it to find a bunch of notes and clippings from early and mid career that had encouraged me in some form. Most of the materials were hand-written notes or more formal memos from bosses, colleagues, and sources from the industry of agriculture I have covered  all of my career. 

During the run, it dawned on me, if it hadn't registered before, how those people had a great deal to do with any success I achieved in those years and that they helped bring me home to this place I am now in life. Then I jumped to the next level of appreciation of all the friends and family who have helped push me along, too. Words for those people would reach to the ineffable.

I've had a wonderfully wind-aided career, and life.  And I should take some time now to try to play that role more often in the lives of others.

 The answer for this day, forgive me, was blowin’ in the wind.

Image: Agriculture.com

A big zero on a business trip

How hard is it to keep running when you’re traveling on business? 

For me, I guess,  it can be like facing the wrong way entrance of a one-way street. In this week’s experience, it dawned on me how cities, convention locations in particular, can be an especially alien environment for running.

So I just went four days without stretching my legs. Zero miles, not a minute. 

There are plenty of excuses and here they are:

The location. Downtown big city. Hilly, heavy traffic in places, surrounded by interstate highways and some sketchy neighborhoods.  And how does one manage all the stoplights?

The meetings. Sometimes early morning, sometimes after hours.  Sometimes at the drop of a hat in the hallway.

The bar. Yes, the hotel had a fitness room, but it was about the size of a rather generous prison cell.  And it was situated about fifty feet from the hotel bar. I did try out the bar.

The food. Trade show food, in particular. There’s something about giving in to a lukewarm hot dog that takes the fight out of you. 

The weather. First there was freezing rain, turning to snow with high winds. Return to fitness room next to bar, if you can.

Sitting. You can do a lot of walking at a convention and trade show, but if you attend meetings and write reports, you’re likely spending a lot of time sitting on your duff. 

Night life. Well, only one night out in this case. But like a trade show hot dog, a couple late-night toddies and a fine, rich meal can sap your will the next day.  (Is this where I admit that I know what it’s like to run with a hangover?)

Lots of excuses, as you can see.  The forces of entropy are easy to summon.

So do you just give in, lower your expectations, maybe just run the hotel stairs a couple times? Jog around the convention center in your street shoes?

Next trip, though, I’ll pack my running togs again, and hope to kick those big city meeting blues. 

Treadmill tips from the masters

Whatever its limitations, the treadmill is a tool that veteran runners have learned to use to complement their outdoor workouts. Some even manage to have a fair amount of fun with the machine.

A recent discussion in the Runner’s World Masters forum offers these ideas to make treadmill workouts a more productive, enjoyable  experience:

Mix it up
Elizabethnyc does a lot of treadmill running, even logging up to 20 miles on the machine. She likes the “great people watching” at the gym, enjoys watching baseball and “stupid TV shows, and listening to music. Another tip from her: Change up the speed regularly and try progressive runs on the machine once in a while.

Pace work 
Another runner who goes long distance on the TM, 20 plus miles on occasion, recommends TMs for pace work.  “A lot of our area tracks are kept locked, so it's difficult for me to do good speed workouts.  The TM solves this problem nicely,” says IlliniDave.  One of his techniques for making the time move along: “I have found that downloading books to my MP3 makes the miles just slide by. There have been a couple of occasions where I have run longer than planned because the book wasn't at a convenient stopping place.”

Experiment with the settings
One runner who does about 25-30% of his mileage on the TM uses the machine for “everything from short recovery runs to tempo runs to eighteen mile runs.” To prevent a breakdown in form--from converting to a heel striker--he has experimented with the machine’s settings to keep on the mid-foot or forefoot.

“In order to keep from getting injured I started experimenting with some of the TM parameters. I found that by changing the incline, to either -1 or +1, I landed much more "natural" for me. This significantly helped with nagging hip pain. So I periodically (every mile or two) change the incline.

“I also change the speed to mimic the natural speed changes when running outside. So if I'm running at 7.1mi/hr I'll actually run in a range of 7.0 to 7.2 on the TM. “One other thing I do is move to different positions (forward or backward) on the treadmill. This forces me to change my neck/head position for where I am viewing.Not sure how much this helps compared to the first two.”

Change position
Greg, a self-described “numbers geek,” says he used to do 75% of his runs on the treadmill. He likes the controlled climate and the data on the dashboard.  To keep things interesting, he offers these tips:  "On longer runs I may run the last .25 of each mile at 20-30 seconds faster. I like the pre-programmed hill workout as it changes things up every 2 minutes, and I like to change my position on the belt, essentially running in a rectangle.  I'll start in the front left and slide to the right....drift to the back...slide to the left....move to the front.  This is fairly challenging to do, especially after an hour or so and really takes some concentration.  It also puts some lateral stress on my legs to help simulate cornering and help with balance.”

Zone out
Brandydan is another runner who’s not afraid to go long distance on the TM, 16-20 milers when training for a full marathon. The machine helps him with the mental training of “doing something for hours,” he says. He likes the TM’s incline/decline features and pre-programmed runs. “ Personally, I zone out on the TM. I have one of those iPods that hold over 100G of stuff, and I actually look forward to some definite 'me' time. I am way too slow...and it has helped me at least learn how to stay at a steady pace.”

Enjoy the view
And then there’s the notion to simply enjoy the indoor surroundings. Says a Texas master:
“I use one of the numerous TMs at our local rec center and do some people watching to break the monotony. It's really entertaining sometimes, especially at the TMs adjacent to the weight machines.”

Join the discussion: Runner's World Masters Forum

On the treadmill: What are you thinking?

I can only meditate when I am walking. When I stop I cease to think; my mind only works with my legs.—Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

In his new book, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Robert MacFarlane introduces his travels with the idea that thought and motion have been tied together in the minds of many a famous thinker. He cites Nietzcshe, and Wordsworth, as well as Rousseau, among others.

Having been tethered to the treadmill while recovering from a cold, I think it’s worth qualifying that the walk or run needs to be “real” if it’s going to move one’s mind in any kind of new direction.

Treadmills are great technology, but they insulate you from nature, and thus much original thought, it seems. On the treadmill you’re on technological life support. You’re indoors, you read, you watch TV, you stare at pulsating monitors. You don't think much.

Boredom on the treadmill is explained by our evolutionary history, says psychologist Hank Davis in a Runner’s World article, "The Caveman in the Gym." When we’re on the treadmill, we’re “missing hundreds of thousands of years of physical and mental expectations,” he says, which include, of course, chasing down a meal or avoiding becoming something’s meal. Running for fun and exercise is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of the species.

Thanks to treadmills we can transcend nature and get in a workout when we are boxed in by circumstances of weather, time and health. But it’s just not the same. The world of thought awaits outdoors.

Run when sick? If it's all in your head

I thought I had made it through the holiday germ-o-sphere in good shape. All through Christmas and New Years were the signs of cold and flu—the last being a woman in a shop selling me a food blender. She could hardly talk and complained how sick she was, blaming it on antibiotics. Okay.

I had managed 12 straight days of running—a number of them in pretty harsh winter weather. It felt good. Seemed like a great start to the New Year and my various resolutions to be a better person.

Today, I’m slogging through the fourth day of a nasty cold, punctuated by an especially sore throat. A bad cold changes your psyche. After you’ve been sick for a few days, it’s hard to imagine being healthy again. Of course when you’re fit and well, you have little mind for what it’s like to be ill.

What’s the conventional wisdom about exercise and illness? Should you run with a cold—or rest?
One authority cited in a relevant Runner’s World article is David Nieman, a Ph.D. who has run 58 marathons and ultras. He prescribes the "neck rule."

According to Nieman, “Symptoms below the neck (chest cold, bronchial infection, body ache) require time off, while symptoms above the neck (runny nose, stuffiness, sneezing) don't pose a risk to runners continuing workouts."

A New York Times story, "Don’t starve a cold of exercise," points to research showing “no difference in symptoms between [a] group that exercised and the one that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds.”

My symptoms include the throat and chest—and certainly the part of the head that’s psychological. It’s depressing to be sidelined. It makes the cold seem worse.

Better hit the streets a bit or try out the treadmill today, or the world will pass me by.
 
Or maybe not. There will be world enough and time tomorrow.