Thursday, January 24, 2008

So what do you think about?

A question I get pretty often from non-runners is, "What do you think about when you're running?"

Fortunately, my dear pals keep me entertained for hours on end each week, and for that I am eternally grateful. But clearly there have to be thoughts bouncing around while I'm running, especially when I'm out by myself. I contemplate the typical things -- whatever might be going on in my daily life that I could use some time to think about -- but have become accustomed to an odd litany of thoughts and phrases that crop up regularly. Most of them are to encourage me to keep my butt moving. A few choice examples:


  • "I love hills, la-la-la."

  • "Chup, chup." (Another hill phrase.)

  • "Almost done, almost done."

  • "What am I going to eat when this is over?"

  • "Drop it like it's hot." (For when I'm running fast.)



Now you know.

2 comments:

Ed Hammerbeck said...

--> "Ach, not this song again. Can I reach my iPod?"
--> "Could I go faster? Do I want to?"
--> "So that's two miles. 2/3rds complete. That's 66%. What's 3/4ths of 3 miles?" [or other math problems]
--> "Oh sh!t! Oh sh!t! Oh sh!t! [imagining something chasing me]
--> Duuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh.

That last one means that I try not to think at all when I run.

Tracy Lightfoot said...

Haha, I don't know how you found this but I'm glad you did!

I do math, too. I did a tempo run on the walking path at Seneca last week, which is a 1.2 mile loop. I wanted to do 5 miles exactly, and so at some point I started trying to figure how many seconds I would need to run to get that last .2 I needed. I could figure it into quarters, but not into fifths. It ate up the last five minutes of the run, which was good.

Looking forward to seeing you in the morning!