The run starts reluctant and slow, the muscles and tendons aching and creaking out of their stationary positions. In a move that requires practice and tribulation to perfect, the body questions the brains own intentions with every step. Your body wants to be perfectly still and content but the brain causes it to move in spite.
Slowly, and like magic, the joints loosen and the muscles warm in a transition unexplained, but well marked by the body. This is the foundation of the distance workout: a smooth and healthy transition into a state of motion, one that builds long-term momentum that will carry the body through faster runs, races, and recoveries in the future.
Once the body warms it becomes excited, renewed, and refreshed by accomplishment, made sweeter with the recent memory of stagnancy fresh in the mind. Adrenaline flows and the senses are aroused to the beautiful and natural surroundings. The mind races for a moment here and there with fleeting dreams of trial and success accompanied by a tinge of invulnerability.
Now the plan is set and the ego is fueled with purpose. Time draws on and the effects of repetition and focus become meditative and healing. The affects of toxins, poor sleep, or a dingy diet begin to disappear as the body’s pump moves more fluids and energy through its intricate organic systems. The body knows the routine, it’s been here before, and it knows what this means.
Happy sights, sounds, and sensations spring from the woods as creeks, or trees and roots, or rustling squirrels, or a blast of warmth from an eddy of still and sun lit air. You work with the trail because you can’t work against it, and your body breaks down piece by piece. The mind works with the body for a time to channel its energy to stress each and every muscle, right down to the last knuckle in your hands. Your body is a host of production, and consumption, and pain; a single muscle moving with refined function towards a single purpose.
A distance workout is characterized by two thresholds. The first is marked by the moment the body has warmed and a subsequent period of time that feels therapeutic and natural. Your body has been there in every last workout and feels at home, knowing well what it feels like during and what it will feel like after. Within this threshold, you will maintain your fitness and enjoyment for the sport, and it is perfectly sustainable.
The second threshold pushes the upper limits of maintenance and indicates a daring break into new territory. This transition is marked by a thought or sensation that being right there in the moment has started to become a chore, and your movements are likely to be questioned. Your muscles begin to ache in despair, but from this point forward the upper limits do not exist. Instead, that day you will eventually make a conscious decision to trick yourself into believing that you found the upper limit, and this moment comes later and later every single time you do.
In the beginning this second threshold came very quickly. You were not used to the feelings of breaking your body down and also allowing it to repair. But, as you gained experience you discovered that the limits were indeed higher than you had once thought, and you relaxed and were able to achieve more.
It’s the time spent beyond the second threshold that affects you while you are getting on with the rest of your life. Your knees ache, your heart hurts, and your lungs, yes your lungs, are actually tired from breathing. Your glow of energy is low although you only know this through an unexpected stumble in the grocery store or a hint of crabbiness at work. You begin to realize that the workout continues beyond removing your shoes and showering off the sweat. It continues into the rest of the day and into the day after that. You might even begin to wonder about the positive and negative affects that this transcendence might have on the rest of your life.
During the run the mind may move to suggest that the second threshold be crossed, and the body makes a stand of defiance. “This is not normal,” the body says. “This is not balance.” But, in another magical and ironic step, the mind relinquishes control and takes a back seat as the body trudges on and just runs, runs, runs, runs.
Now your body and mind are in no man’s land and the challenge begins. But, you’ve been here so many times before, and you know what this means. Mild excitement merges with pride as you decide to keep moving, because this is the stuff that defines who you are, and who you are as an athlete. ‘Without this, your labour bears no fruit,’ you say dramatically.
After all these years it’s hard to doubt the quality of the time you spend training. When you finish your workout you are thoroughly spent and your mind moves to other things. The imbalances of the day have vanished from the mind at ease, but the crossing of the second threshold lives on in your body as exhaustion, and strangely, contentment.
It’s the next day and you still feel the run. At times you get up from your desk, or cash register, or wax bench, and take a break to go and stare out a window for a while. The workout has permeated every little piece of your body so deeply that it has finally entered your mind. “This is amazing” you say to yourself about how affected you are. There is a race tomorrow but the thought of restarting the cycle enters your mind. “Maybe,” you decide. You no longer see or think of the tired, or the hurt, or possibilities of exhaustion or anxiety waiting in the next step because you’ve been here before, and you know what it means.
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