Body Over Mind

The first time I went running for exercise was in the summer of 2004. I had just moved into a new house at 601 Watts St., and the hot water had not yet been turned on. I needed to take a shower, and reasoned the best way to do so would be to first get myself so incredibly hot that cold water would seem like a blessing. So I dragged myself into the sweltering North Carolina heat, and after what seemed like the longest loop around Duke Campus (in reality about 7 minutes) I stumbled back to Watts St., my lungs, muscles, and practically my entire body burning with pain and exhaustion.

Since then I've gone through phases, sometimes running as often as three times a week, but usually closer to once every two weeks. I do not enjoy it. Like many who run or swim or practice some other form of exercise, the benefit for me is primarily emotional, i.e. increasing energy level, improving self-esteem, and combating depression. I am not a natural athlete, nor do I extract any joy from pushing my body to its limit, or challenging myself to run faster, farther, longer.

In a semantic sense, the exercise that I have been doing (while better than nothing) can hardly even be called running. I am slow, possibly under 6 miles per hour, which a trainer interviewed by the BBC identifies as the boundary between running and jogging. If you are slower than 6 miles per hour, the argument goes, you would be better off walking. Coupled with the speed dilemma is my endurance level. Most of the runs I have taken during my intermittent training have clocked in at under 20 minutes, which falls either below or on the edge of the recommended length for cardiovascular exercise, depending on who you ask (most experts say 30-60 minutes three or four times a week). All of which left me wondering: am I simply not cut out for running or is there something about this sport that I am failing to grasp?

One recent night in the midst of old friends, the conversation turned toward running. A friend who recently substituted his addiction to cigarettes with an addiction to running felt it gave him the same release and calmness that smoking used to provide.

"If I miss a day, I feel awful," he explained. "Right now, it's like I can't wait till tomorrow when I can go running." I stared at him incredulously. He explained to me that running for him was not a social act -- he could never do it while chatting with a friend alongside-- rather, it was something more equivalent to a meditation, his body eventually falling into a steady rhythm, leaving his mind detached and able to relax.

"Well, I've never felt like that," I told him. For me it's always a constant struggle to make the next step, and by the end I feel like I'm about to melt. Another friend, a former cross-country runner, explained to me that I needed to go past all that, to run until I felt like I couldn't run anymore and then floor it over the hump -- from that point on (a point which he pegged at around 20 minutes) I wouldn't feel a difference between running for ten more minutes or thirty more, and the ex-smoker agreed. Only if I pushed myself passed what I felt to be my physiological limit would I begin to get some mental peace and enjoyment out of this sport.

Okay. All I have to do to achieve a moderate sense of enlightenment (and perhaps I was already over-romanticizing the whole situation) is run for longer than I ever have before. It's not about what your body can take, I told myself, so there's no need to work gradually up to a longer distance -- better just to settle on a time limit and hope my mind would be powerful enough to ignore my body when it begged for mercy.

I settled on forty minutes, figuring the twenty minute mark would be an ideal halfway point, in addition to being numerically significant, since it was nearly double anything I had ever attempted. Starting off at exactly 10 am, stopwatch running, I felt the morning air being baked to its oven-roasting afternoonness; I tried to run exclusively through the shady spots, which still maintained the cool air like a memory of dawn. This proved to be impossible, but I labored ahead, checking my watch once every few minutes and then calculating what percentage of the run I had completed (usually close to one sixth or one fifth). I was running up a small hill when it hit me, how incredibly hot, just hot, I was and I how my tongue pursed for lack of water (I had neither eaten nor drunk in preparation for this grand victory of mind over body). At twenty minutes I doubled back. Each stride now brought me closer to home, I reasoned; shouldn't that motivate me enough to break through the fatigue currently weighing on me like a sack of bricks? Every time I saw a shady spot on the grass shoulder, I imagined plopping down to rest, to let my limbs touch the ground so that gravity couldn't pull on them anymore.

Finally, as I passed one of the last university buildings I would see on the course, I felt my stomach drop. In a split second I resigned myself, I gave in, I collapsed in a pile on the shaded grass, knowing that water and an air-conditioned refuge were within reach.

In a word, I failed. Perhaps I was too naive to think that enlightenment would be that easy to achieve. Yet there is a sadness, and ultimately a seeping loneliness in feeling you can't reach something that other people seem to get on a daily basis. It reminded me of the Meryl Streep character in "Adaptation," so intent on finding an easy path to passion and belonging.

What mistake had I made? Had it been too hot? Had I set out too late in the day? Had I not drunk enough water? These questions raced through my mind on the walk back, mingling with thoughts of desperation and inadequacy. Eventually I began to consider my options: a) stop running altogether, b) continue running in my customary manner and never push beyond the point of exhaustion, or c) try again, perhaps gradually this time, to extend the length of my run, to try reach that point at which the suffering of the body dwindles or remains constant and the mind settles into a semi-meditative state. I know that state might be different for every person, or maybe even non-existent, but why not try when you have nothing to lose.