7 posts tagged “running”
Last week I took a break from my steady writing schedule, flew to Amarillo, visited my folks, and ran the Palo Duro Canyon 20K trail race. What a wild, gorgeous, lonely, and exhausting run.
I realize that "dentate gyrus" sounds like some sort of sadistic orthodontic device. But it's really a part of your brain that keeps you sharp. It's providing yet more evidence that running helps writing. Apparently running -- and aerobic exercise in general -- causes your brain to produce more brain cells.
Nifty, eh?
Recent research by neuroscientists shows that "after pounding the treadmill four times a week for an hour for 12 weeks, a group of previously inactive men and women, ages 21 to 45, showed substantial increases in cerebral blood volume (CBV)--a proxy for neurogenesis because where there are more cells, there are more blood vessels."
These brain cells are developing in the dentate gyrus, "the very node that [another researcher] has identified as the site of impairment in normal memory loss."
People who do regular aerobic exercise do better cognitively than those who don't, they do better on memory tests, and they have enhanced "neural plasticity, the process by which the brain changes in response to learning." (Read the full article, which appeared in the 19 May 2008 issue of Time).
I must say, I find this thought comforting. My mind's fitness has often tracked my physical fitness, but I always thought that had to do with my thyroid disease. This research takes the connection to a deeper level: my brain feels the miles I pound, and flourishes.
Oh, and blueberries are apparently magical for your brain, too.
Sunday, I ran a 10K trail race called "The Maze." It winds through the
Walnut Creek trail system in Austin, TX, which looks like this:
The course is a labrynth, virtually unnavigable without a guide or directional flags at every branch in the trail. It's full of tight switchbacks, sharp climbs, loose rocks, and tree roots ready to trip you at every turn. Three creek crossings make sure you get your feet good and wet.
Flying over rocks, tripping up sharp inclines, splashing through streams, planting my foot and darting around a sharp corner, swinging on a tree trunk. I can't explain why running such difficult terrain feels so exhilarating to me, in spite of pain and exhaustion and breathlessness. Or why I'm immensely proud that I finished 12th out of 99 women in the race. Or why I feel like Iron Woman today.
But I do.
I am Iron Woman.
(Photos courtesy of AustinBike.com)
Apparently, every cell of our body has one. Our skin, organs, bones, blood are a-hum with time, every moment. Even more astonishingly, our inner chronometer "works in perfect rhythm with the finest mechanical clocks [ . . . ] over the course of [ . . . ] an entire life, it is off by no more than a few minutes. Our bodies are keenly aware of outer time, down to almost the exact second" (Klein 7).
I am reading about time in science journalist Stefan Klein's book The Secret Pulse of Time. Me and time, we've never gotten along that well. As a child, I dove into books and escaped into an other world's time. As a college student, I tried to outrun it. I carried packets of Vivarin in my back jeans pocket like Skoal. As a grad student, I tried to outwit it, scheduling my day down to the quarter hour, to grasp every last bit and wring it dry. Lately all I seem to be able to do is to track it, in spreadsheets, like I track the miles I run. At least I can watch its flow.
Klein, however, seems to think that the point isn't to shape and control time, but to sync our our lives to our biological clocks. To create a good fit with time. "There is a right time for each of the things we do. If you try to work counter to your personal rhythm, you will expend more time and energy on the things you need to get done. You will feel weary and wretched, without knowing why."
So for today, I share with you Klein's rough schedule of your biological clock. Use wisely. It may be that we can find the magic sweet spot for writing and running somewhere in the rhythm of our cells.
6:00 Your heart starts to beat faster.
7:00 You wake up (which, if you're a "night" person, is easier to do if the sun is shining on you).
7:15 You may feel a bit of a letdown, which is also attributable to your hormonal balance. [. . . ] This is why depression is almost always the most severe in the morning. But the mood-enhancing
hormones will soon kick in.
7:30 Your mind is not quite clear yet. You should stick to simple mechanical tasks.
8:00 Your thinking power hits its stride [as your body stops producing melatonin.]
8:30 You feel the urge to move your bowels.
10:30 Your mind is at its most alert. You can solve complex problems more deftly now than at any other time of day. Your biological clock makes your efficiency fluctuate by up to 30 percent. The difference between your peak and low hours is quite marked, the equivalent of drinking three to four glasses of wine, in the latter case.
12:00 You are feeling quite chipper, since your brain is now releasing an ample quantity of beta-endorphin and serotonin. Time seems to pass uncommonly quickly.
2:00 Your inner excitement subsides. You begin to daydream. If you have to give a lecture at this time, and
you find yourself staring into vacant faces, this is not necessarily a reflection on the poor quality of your
lecture.
2:30 Now would be the time for a siesta. Twenty minutes are plenty, and will make you more alert, more
efficient, and in a better mood.
3:30 You begin to perk up again.
4:00 Your reaction time grows shorter. You handle simple tasks quite well. Most people are better at retaining facts that they have memorized in the afternoon.
5:00 The optimal time for sports. Your body temperature has risen even higher. Your heart and lungs work more efficiently than at any other time of day. A pleasant byproduct of the workout: if you work up a sweat at this time, your body temperature will fall mroe sharply about six hours later, which facilitates falling asleep.
6:00 Your sense of taste is keenest at this point.
7:00 This is the best time to savor a fine wine, because alcohol is tolerated best in the early evening, when you are least likely to stay tipsy. The liver reaches the peak of its activity at about eight o'clock.
8:00 Your brain is still fit for routine tasks like sorting papers.
9:00 The first melatonin is secreted, preparing the body for sleep. Your body temperature falls.
10:00 Your alertness fades, and your mood dips.
11:00 For most people, sex occurs at bedtime."
Note: small children's circadian rhythms tend to run earlier than this schedule, and in teenage years, the rhythm shifts about two hours backward, making almost all teenagers "night owls".
Today I pick myself up and crawl back on the wagon.
At the beginning of April I missed a week and a half of writing, due to interference from the Rest of My Life. April 10 I started again, then missed three more days. Stalling, faltering, wandering away. Meanwhile, I have been missing runs, as well. Last weekend I even skipped my long run.
It is difficult to retain focus and commitment over long periods of time. It becomes even more difficult when one is weathering a personal crisis, as I am now; when one's career is uncertain, as mine is now; and when one is trying to build a more involved social life, as I am doing now.
But I want this book to happen so badly. I ache to create it, even though it's the most maddeningly difficult thing I've ever attempted. I need both the creative challenge and the words -- the plasticity of the words! And so with running: even when I don't want to run, I need running. I can't entirely explain it. It's partly about feeling strong. It's partly about stress relief. It's partly about getting out of my office, my house, my clothes. But it's largely about things I can't even name: something that happens to me in the rhythm of the run. And the tiredness. And the power of my muscles pulling me through the woods, the streets, the air.
So, this morning I got up early, made the coffee and oatmeal, and I put in my writing time. This afternoon I will leave work a bit early, log a good 10-miler, and so begin training for an upcoming series of trail races.
On we go, again!
At last Saturday's St. Patrick's day party, Chris Flynn made fun of my long distance running. "Why on earth would you run so far? Still trying to win daddy's approval?"
--Chris, I should note, is a hard-core endurance cyclist who puts himself through much harder, and faster, paces than I do. He's one to talk. Chris had also drunk at least 10 beers by this point. --
It took him a while to wear me down, but after he'd polished off another four beers, I finally admitted that I wasn't running for daddy, but maybe from god. The weird thing is, I'd only had ONE beer when I said this. (Because, well, I was planning to run 14.5 miles the next morning.)
Is god in the running? I've sometimes said that running is the closest thing I have to a spiritual practice. But when I say things like that, I'm not really talking about god. I'm talking about emptying myself out, calming my senses, exhausting my body and in the exhaustion, exposing what feels elemental. I don't really mean to refer to my "spirit" as some distinct thing created by god: a "soul."
So, what would it mean if god were really in the running? Does long distance running have something to do with the memory of the God that haunted my previous life? Or the aspects of that God that I still find compelling? Or perhaps the hard-worn, clear-eyed, but radically visionary mysticism that so appealed to me when I attempted to study god--whatever god might be. Asceticism or self-immolation? Or something more like a vision quest or a fast day?
I'll have to think about that on my next run.
Today I begin what may be a short run, may be a very long run, of writing out loud. I am a virgin blogger, unsure of myself and feeling a little naked. But I will begin by making my intentions towards you all (anyone?) clear.
This blog is about:
- blogging
- writing, and in particular turning a dissertation into a book
- while fitting scholarship into a nontraditional academic career
- figuring out that career
- while running (and biking or swimming) long distances each week
all while
- being a 30-something woman with a brain, a runner's body, a career, family & friends, creative ambitions, and a thirst for a full, balanced life not wholly dominated by any one of these elements
I'm not sure to whom I'm writing. Who is out there? Hello! Who are you? Welcome, whoever you are, and thanks for reading. If you can help me figure out how to do any of this, I will owe you my firstborn. . . .
