Ever since the age of 14, when I peaked athletically by hitting puberty before the rest of my track team, my enthusiasm for strenuous exercise has trended downward. I'll still run to beat a red light but I don't think I've got what it takes to run laps on a track anymore, even if someone is firing a pistol into the air.
Occasional concerns about my physical fitness have kept me from abandoning running entirely. As I may have mentioned previously, each year as autumn matures I begin to put on layers of thermal-insulating blubber. Understand it's nothing I'm ashamed of. It happens naturally to all sirenian mammals. This year, however, I shortsightedly bought all my winter clothes in a medium,"" and I know from experience that there's nothing worse than bursting the seams on a good sweater and then having to go sulk it out in estuarine coastal waters.
These kinds of thoughts usually drive me to the SERF once a season, where I toil joylessly on a machine lubricated in the sweat of 100 strangers. However, after reading in this paper about the mental benefits of regular exercise last week, I decided to say a novena to whoever the patron saint of cardio-vascular fitness may be (they were all thin, really) and test the article's claims for myself.
Now, with a week of fun runs under my belt, I've rediscovered the delirious world familiar to long-distance runners, and I never want to leave.
First off, running is supposed to improve blood flow to the brain, and an elevated heart rate will certainly make your mind race furiously. After a couple miles you might even think you have extra-sensory powers - and you do! When I run down State Street I can tell the other pedestrians are thinking about how much they respect my motivation and self-discipline, and that they'd approach me and say so if I wasn't sweating profusely and muttering obscenities.
And it doesn't stop with the workout, either. As compared to the previous week, the past several days have been like viewing the world through Super Mario-colored glasses, where colors are more saturated and exuberant jumping is the norm. Starch tastes like sugar, sugar tastes like Splenda, sitting still feels like dizzying motion.
A brisk three-mile run is like a permission slip from fate for whatever hideous things you have done or are planning on doing to your body. Health-wise, you can be reasonably sure you're in good working order as long as you can make it past that benchmark.
It can be hard to work a fitness routine like this into a busy schedule. However, whatever time you spend will be offset by your efficient new brain. If you're easily distracted, even simple tasks like doing the laundry can expand outward, consuming every available resource like a bananafish. With the mental discipline gained from regular exercise I now feel much more focused, much like the bananafish that diligently devours every bananaddendum on its schedule.
Finally, the experience of running is, in and of itself, a great thing. I never bring an iPod along. For one, I have a tendency to unconsciously sing along with my headphones, and no one wants to be overtaken by a sweaty man mumbling the words to ""Devil's Haircut."" But I also don't want to miss out on the sights and sounds of the downtown area, like when someone - apparently trapped in 1994 - yells, ""Run, Forest! Run!"" Clever!
If you or anyone you know has been injured in an encounter with a bananafish, contact the offices of Hunziker & Hunziker at hunziker@wisc.edu._
