Breakfast Mush

[digitaldiscipline]

There's this thing that happens when your friends know you "do fitness stuff". It's akin to the Pickup Truck Call, in that you're top-of-mind when it comes to moving things, especially large, awkward, or heavy things. This is expected and, usually, fairly entertaining, because there's usually food and stuff as thanks, plus... hey, free bonus exercise. :-)

There's also the inevitable wallpapering of stuff that captures social media mindshare, which Oatmeal's treatise on running did when he posted it recently.

Let's assume I said something clever about my immune system vs. viral phenomena [here] and jump to the meat of the discussion. :-)

I don't agree with him. I don't think he's wrong, and, on a lot of what he says, I do think he's on target. But his experience is not my experience, nor are my goals his goals.

Overlap? Sure. He's got the Blerch; I have the skinny little shit I used to be jazzed up with some lurking ass-kickery. But, when I've run, I have absolutely hit that wall (9.7 miles into the half marathon, and, frankly, I hit it hard enough that I have no interest in hitting it again... this is coming from a guy who has almost fainted after a set of squats, has strained several muscles mid-lift, may have ruptured a tendon lifting, definitely tore a tricep once, and am a month and a half out from getting a torn-up shoulder surgically repaired, and the wall sucked more than anything except a three-day episode of sciatica and what the surgical recovery is looking like). The pride in accomplishing something that used to look amazing and nigh unto impossible is a hell of a thing, and achievement is a goodness.

I've never even been within shouting distance of Runner's High; I occasionally get a few seconds of CNS tingle when I'm fully activated and involved in a heavy lift (I can't say it's addictive, but it's like you're Super Mario and you've just gotten the gold star power-up, and you're sparkling with light and completely invincible and 400 pounds feels like a phone book).

On the subject of vanity... he probably knows he's constructing a straw man out of douchebags and bullshit wrapped in TapOut gear, but I'd be remiss if I let him off for his misguided asscactusry. It's a microcosm us-vs-them fillip that doesn't need to be there, and pissed me off enough by disparaging what I do (ie: pick up heavy shit in order to improve the performance and appearance of my meat suit) to generate this entire goddamned diatribe.

Look, Oats, just because running didn't give you the body you thought it would, you don't need to bag on those of us who are doing things that actually work in that direction. You do your thing and enjoy it, I'll do my thing and enjoy it, and, having burned a shitton of calories, we can go destroy a pizza together afterwards and talk about the cool shit you saw running or the local sports team or the inexplicable persistence of HGTV.




The first 1/3 of that first box is true for the author.
The middle 1/3 of that first box may or may not be true for runners.
The last 1/3 of that first box is true for any athletic pursuit.


I have a scrawled, sweat-soaked, smudged, chalk-caked logbook that fucking says so.

Henry Rollins said that "the iron never lies, because two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds."

It doesn't matter if you're running two hundred feet or two hundred miles, lifting two pounds or a thousand; you're doing something for yourself, whether it's searching for a better version of yourself or slaying an inferior one that needs to fuck off.

Do what you do. Fuck 'em if they tell you it's wrong.
You're not doing it for them.
You're not doing it for The Oatmeal.
You're not doing it for me.

You're doing it for you.

... and fuck Nike for co-opting the phrase that goes here.

Fuck it.
I'm out.
I have weights to lift.

Comments

[yokes1971.livejournal.com]

Funny, of course I had several friends send me the Oatmeal link. I thought it was funny from a strictly brain candy factor. I still struggle to understand why anyone gives a fuck why this fat guy bothers to run, or why you lift,because frankly we each have our own reasons for doing it, and guess what that's good enough. I get particularly tweaked at the folks who feels the need to"comment" when they haven't been off the couch since 1994.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but I have NEVER gotten endorphins from exercising or felt "good." Ever. Not from running, not from Crossfit stuff, nothing. I hate exercising - which is undoubtedly why it's so easy for me to fall out of the habit and then have to struggle to get back to it. I hate exercise. I do it because it's good for me, not because I ever feel good while doing it. I wish it were different, but there it is.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Ultra-running is definitely a thing, but it's far, far removed from doing 5k and 10ks... I think that folks who may not do anything along that spectrum kind of lump "stuff beyond what I could do" into a single pile, like (to revisit an analogy CS and I were discussing over coffee the other morning) how cars that can do a quarter mile in 14 seconds are undifferentiated from those that can do it in 10... there isn't the same grasp or concept of how huge a disparity there is in the capacity needed to do things until you hit the last tenth of a percent and are looking at top fuel dragsters that do it under 4, at 320mph.

... it all becomes "that's faster/stronger/better than me."

/earworms everyone with Daft Punk

[etcet.livejournal.com]

my ex hated exercise, but not physical activity. so stuff like having an active job, or gardening, or whatever - where the exercise was integral but not the point - was a-ok.

[dogsbody01.livejournal.com]

Good for you. Just don't jog yourself, into a pinebox, like my homeboy, Jerome did.

[yokes1971.livejournal.com]

That last 10th of a percent effort is unique to each individual. Collapsing after a race for me was a pivitol moment. i pushed myself harder faster longer than iever did and I did prove to me how far I can push myself. And now know what I need to do to make that point further and further away, that's what keeps me doing it, it used to be get in shape, dont be a couch potato, now it's just how hard how long can I build myself to do, not because I can, because frankly I can't today, but I will someday down the line. I used to be that guy, I could never run, a marathon is way out reach, an ultra for gods sake stop. What running did for me was turn those statements into bs. The mental side of running, or lifting, or anything is the thing most people just don't get. Your right its because its easier to say that's faster, stringer better than me. The happy side effect of this mental disturbance is I am getting in shape, not being a couch potato.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

while I'm convalescing, i'm afraid that i'm going to not be able to do much else, especially with the bone shaving and tendon relocation. i'll be legs/cardio only for the rest of the year. which, truth be told, i could do with - midriff squish doesn't hinder weightlifting except when i do pullups, so it still needs to fuck off.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

*fistbump*

[anarcha.livejournal.com]

For myself, I detest the snobbery of some runners.

For me, my running is a HOBBY! Just like my friends who do photography. It's not some superspecial thing that makes me better than others.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

There was some blog post linked on FB a couple days ago about "running" vs "being a runner" that was, in a nutshell, exactly what you're describing. I think that folks, from time to time, get caught up defining themselves by what they do rather than who they are (and i can be as guilty of this as the next guy)

not everyone does it for the same reasons, either initially or at any point while they're still doing it; it's this weirdly prescriptive attitude / one true way that bugs me, i think.