Because I enjoy rotting my brain, I have spent a lot of time on Twitter lately (lately meaning the past 10 years). One of Twitter’s favorite topics during the COVID era is a discussion of the two paths people can choose during quarantine. Apparently you can either develop bad habits and eat and drink yourself into a coma or you can work on self-improvement projects that you’ve never had time for in the past because you were too busy eating and drinking yourself into a coma.
This is the face I make when I’m leading a serious discussion about reality television.
I have a (previously discussed) YouTube addiction, my wife loves baking pies, and I am a Grade A napper. I am a runaway train down the first path of degeneracy. The mission for me, therefore, is finding a way to mix a little bit of the good with the bad. This blog and our reality TV podcast (watch The Challenge and subscribe) are good, creative outlets that have caused me to dream about #content. Check out at this picture of me with my new podcasting mic.
I love my mic.
But by far the most shocking development is that I started running during quarantine. This is notable because, historically, I have always hated running.
This aversion doesn’t make a ton of sense. My parents used to run marathons with me in the baby jogger, which must have been a delightful experience as a one-year-old in Los Angeles. (It is currently snowing in Ann Arbor [it is April 15] and I would pay $1,000 to get pushed 26 miles in the California sun.) You would think that early exposure would get the legs turning, but I always gravitated toward the water as a kid.
My college roommate, now a professional runner, was one of the best high school and college distance runners in American history. When we were moving into the dorms, I joked to Chris’s mom that, because he was a Stanford athlete, he must be pretty fast. Turns out, he was really fucking fast. I loved going to his races, but I was personally more concerned with inhaling preworkout and throwing around weights with horrible form than I was with trying to become a runner. It is no coincidence that this was the period in which my body began to morph into the shape of a toaster.
Now, knocking on 30’s door and with a global pandemic causing some serious introspection, I felt like it was time to give it one more shot. I hurt my back lifting and decided that universal gym closings were a sign to move on to another fitness pursuit. I am happy to report, nearly 40 miles later, that I think it’s finally caught on.
Here are my very pedestrian stats:
Longest run: March 23, 2020: 8 miles at 9:34/mile
Key takeaways: a blister and a better understanding of why people tape their nipples during long runs. I had never run more than three miles before starting in mid-March, so this felt like a herculean effort.
Fastest 5K: April 10, 2020: 24:20
Key takeaways: Chris broke the American Junior record in the 5K as a freshman, when he posted a time of 13:29. I’m coming for that ass (if you provide me a 10-minute head start).
Fastest mile: April 5, 2020: 6:57.
Key takeaways: Hurt my achilles and learned about lactic acid. New goal is to run a sub-6.
Pounds lost: 6
Sent some of my friends a shirtless progress pic today and promise not to do that again, I’m sorry.
Generally, I feel better on days that I run and my baseline mood is more positive than it likely would have been under similar conditions. I am still sort of shaped like a toaster, but the running has made me more religious about stretching, which has actually helped my lifting and led to some physical improvements. I doubt I will ever join a running club (no offense) and I don’t feel like a cheetah or whatever meditative shit some people tap into when they’re running. But overall, this has been a nice if not surprising addition to my life.
What I watched today on YouTube
Obviously running. I am deep in the hole of comeback videos, and this one was possibly the most insane. I don’t love that USC is the protagonist, but I can make a one-time exception because I consider myself a bit of a running underdog (not to brag).
I suggest you watch the entire race, but here is the context. It’s the 2018 NCAA Championships. Kentucky has Olympian Sydney McLaughlin. Purdue gets out to a big lead. And USC’s first three laps are horrific.
Here are three key moments from the race:
[3:33]: We dive in at the start of the final lap, which essentially turns into a mosh pit. Two women bump into each other, USC bobbles the handoff, and then USC and Kentucky get into a shouldering match about 20M into the final 400M.
[3:54]: We get our first look at the gap between USC and first-place Purdue (the thumbnail of this video). I am not an expert, but I would describe that separation as “a lot.”
[4:14]: Just an all-time announcer jinx. One commentator says “I just don’t know if Purdue can be caught” and the other suggests that the only way that could happen is if they “drop the baton.” Right as that happens, Kendall Ellis, the USC anchor, goes into some wild hyperspeed mode and just dusts the Purdue runner. Look how far back she is going into the final stretch:
More like Purdon’t count your chickens before they hatch. What a fun race. Can’t wait to get outside today and run about 10x slower than every athlete in that clip.
What I listened to today
I saw Doso as part of a Sofar show this summer in Chicago. This song deserves more than 765 views, 300 of which are mine.
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I’d love to hear from fellow runners in the comments about what got you into running, the music/podcasts you listen to if you’re shaped like a toaster and want to be distracted, and your best running achievement(s) (as long as they aren’t too much better than mine).
Hang in there. Sports will be back soon(?)