Progression Run and Memories
I embarked on my weekly “long run” this morning a little before 7 am. Tomorrow is July 4th, Independence Day.
The run totaled 12 miles. I kept my pace in a low heart rate zone for the majority of the run; I’m mindful of the human tendency to overdo exercises. I accelerated the final 25 minutes of the run, but felt relatively fresh at the finish.
I prefer having the majority of my long runs in a low heart rate zone because I find myself in a meditative state while running at a prolonged low effort. My mind wanders. There are no thoughts of physical pain or fatigue. This pace is my “forever” zone. It is a pace in which time ceases to exist. My sights are on my environs, not the ground beneath me.
For a brief moment I thought about what I surprisingly miss from living in China (I’m staying in the US, but I did get a lot of value from my time in China). There are several things I admittedly miss, but I’ll only detail one of those things here: the struggle of it all. Through the struggle of figuring out how to persist in China, I found meaning.
The temperature, for example, was almost never ideal. In the summers I baked due to a lack of air conditioning. In the winters I froze due to a lack of adequate heating. And yet somehow I adapted (or attempted to as best I could). It was that adaptation that strengthened me.
In the return to a world utterly obsessed with perfect temperature regulation, I’ve found both comfort and a relative emptiness. The A/C puffs a cool breeze that both soothes my skin and drains my soul.
Every now and then I’ll turn off the air conditioning and let my apartment’s temperature shoot up to around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I try to remind myself that it’s discomfort that spurs growth, not comfort. I’ll let myself sweat it out at night.
I find “discomfort experiments” such as this worthwhile because I am building up to some extreme endurance activities. Endurance running and cycling require the ability to withstand and understand discomfort. So, I try to disrupt the status quo here and there. I think back to my life in China. I try to resist the innate temptation to overcompensate with comfort.
In China, my struggles were also exciting. The struggle to communicate, the struggle to eat adequately, the struggle to adapt. They caused stress and yet they enlivened me. I miss those things and more. I don’t plan to return to China, but these struggles taught me valuable lessons.
My thoughts of China were brief and mixed with several other random reflections.
Another thought I had on my trail run regarded the animals I often cross on my path. I’ve seen a menagerie of wildlife: geese, turkey, robins, crows, squirrels, rabbits, possums, and even a family of beaver. There is something deeply satisfying in crossing paths with these animals. I’ve gained a better understanding of some species-specific behavior. I’ve had a better glimpse of the world as it was meant to exist, outside the vice grip of the city.
Turkey, for example, are much flightier than geese, which will often “stand their ground” defensively. The turkey take off running.
I suspect that distance running is really about connectedness. You can’t find that on a treadmill. It’s about experiencing the earth’s surface, developing a relationship with it, and finding connection with nature. A treadmill is more of a torture device. I can’t run on those things for the life of me. They lack fun in every sense of the word.
Tomorrow is Independence Day. For the sake of memories I’ll post a photo that was taken about 4 years ago. This one still feels like yesterday. I feel like the thrill of it all captures how I think of my time in China, in general: exhilarating, nauseating, unique, and brief enough to feel like a dream.
I rode this in China and then fought to avoid puking for an hour afterward:
