Couples Counseling with Running

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm mad at Running. It's a slightly abusive and unfulfilling relationship. In short, I want it to just happen. I want to wake up one morning and just suddenly, magically be a good runner. From there I will be willing to work hard to become a great runner, but hard work is not exciting when you're working your ass off just to crack the top 50% of the field (slowpokes and fatasses included). I have decided that a 7-minute mile would be pretty fabulous, and a pace that I am more than willing to not work for. If I could run 7-minute miles all the time, I'd be pretty stoked and wouldn't mind run training. Then again, I would also be pretty stoked if I won the lottery, landed my dream job, or Dara Torres asked me out on a date.

I just find it WAY easier to sit there and grumble about being a crappy runner than actually going out and doing the work to BECOME a good runner. See, the problem with learning to be a better runner is that you've actually got to run to do it. This arrangement does not work for me.

However, like it or not, I am still committed to running for at least the next year, so I'm going to have to learn to live with it. So I have brought Running an olive branch. Running and I are going to counseling. Twice a week for the next four weeks (and beyond), I will be following a program to improve the efficiency and technique of my running.

Almost a month ago I purchased Striding On based on the glowing reports they gave it on my favoritest podcast, IM Talk. I figured that if Bevan, a 9-hour ironman, had taken the initiative to stick to this program and saw results from doing some drills off a DVD, then I could too. Ordering stuff from New Zealand turned out to be an adventure in and of itself, figuring out exchange rates, and attempting an international bank transfer before I went the Paypal rout. Then, 3 weeks later, when it showed up at the post office, they turned the package over and over trying to decipher which bar code they were supposed to scan before they let me sign for it. Then I realized that the southern hemisphere has a different standard of DVD's than the States (Europe does too, so I should have seen that one coming). Finally, I got it to work and watched the DVD tonight.

I enjoyed this form of training because it involved no actual running. I wish all training could be done in front of my computer.

So beginning next week, I will go to an undisclosed location alone, in the dark, where no sane people can see me, and I will begin breaking down my running motion with movements that look like I'm being zapped with electrical impulses in the bottom of my feet. I will perform drills with such names as "The Funky Walk," "The Butt Kiss Jog," and "The Fast Step-Over Jog" (which looks much sillier than it sounds). Sure, I may look like someone out of the Ministry of Silly Walks, but I hope that I will be rewarded with sexier race pictures, feet that actually leave the ground as I run, and of course, instant and effortless 7-minute miles.