So somehow two thirds of August have passed without me blogging. It's not that nothing happened, lots of things happened, some things even worth blogging about, but the blogging itself somehow didn't happen. I blame it on the heat, it melts one's brain until you can't form proper sentences. Or remember that you want to form them.
Despite the heat, one of the things I have been doing is running. I call it running because that is what you're supposed to call it, 'go for a run etc', but it's not like I'm going anywhere fast. My average speed is 7 minutes per kilometer, or 8,5 km/hr (that's 5.2 miles an hour for the imperialists). It is a steady speed, I can keep that up for all of my run without any decline, but it's still in the 'slow but steady' category. The aim is first to build up some more stamina so I can actually run for a longer time, and then build up the speed.
But why do I run? I could say a lot of inspirational things about feeling healthier or setting goals for myself or whatnot, but I think Matt Inman basically said it all in his comic about running long distances and 'beating the blergh'. Okay, so he runs ultra marathons. I run 2 k, max. The principle is the same. He mentions 'the Blergh', the thing that keeps you from moving, that encourages you to eat or do unhealthy things. Basically, the Blergh is human nature, as we have been programmed for thousands of years to eat as much as we could whenever there was food and not to spend any energy doing other stuff. It's evolution, and now that food is so abundantly available, it's making us fat and lazy. We're not the only ones; all creatures are basically lazy when their basic needs are fulfilled.
Now Matt lives in the US, where you can get a full plate of fast food at the price of an apple here. I don't eat unhealthily, I just don't move a lot. I bike to and from work every day, and some days, that's all the exercise I get. I spend 9 hours sitting behind a computer screen, when I get home there are chores and whatnot, but usually I spend the evening with friends, and again we spend it sitting down. So for me, the problem was not so much food as movement. I spent my time, that precious commodity, doing other things than moving.
This is not good. It wasn't making me feel good. I wanted to move more.
So why running? It's basically the easiest, most down-to-earth sort of movement there is. You put on your running shoes, and you go out the door. No membership required, no team mates or specific time slots or special equipment needed. You just go run.
I didn't actually just put on my shoes and started to run, I did some preparation and myself on some sort of build-up schedule. The first aim was running 15 minutes at a stretch. I specifically didn't set myself any distance goals, because my average speed is so slow that they would be harder to achieve, and if I know anything about myself it is that I needed to get some results in fast, or I would just stop doing it. So 15 minutes at a stretch was the goal, and after about three months of on-and-off training (with a two week holiday in between), I actually reached that goal. Woo hoo!
But as I reached it, I realised it was not getting there. It was about building up my strength, my endurance, about getting my body into shape (by which I mean; better at exercising. Not losing weight, although that is a nice bonus when it happens). Some days, the run goes perfectly and I feel great and I'm going faster than I thought or further than I thought and I experience a bit of the runner's high that 'real' runners are crazy about. Some days, I feel slow and cumbersome and I can't even reach the minutes I did last time, let alone run the extra time I'd set myself for that particular day. Not to worry. I ran. It's always better than not running. The goal is the running in itself, the feeling good about doing that. I'll leave the other stuff, the fancy gear and the special diets and the races to the pros.
Maybe that is the trick, for me at least: if the goal is to move more, to get your butt of the couch and build up your muscles and your endurance, just going out to run is enough. It's doesn't have to be fast, it doesn't have to be far. You just have to do it.
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
Monday, 30 December 2013
Sports action live
We Dutch love our ice skating. The best part is when it freezes outside and we get what is called 'natural ice' (as opposed to artificial ice in the skating halls) and everyone drops whatever they're doing and goes ice skating. The absolute high point of the mania is when there might be an Elfstedentocht, which is a 200 km long track touring the 11 (historic) cities of Friesland.
But even without outdoor ice, things can get pretty exciting on indoor ice skating. There are two kinds: long track and short track, and the former is by far the more popular (although short track is catching on quickly). Apart from soccer, speed skating is probably the most popular sport in the Netherlands (which could be exemplified by the fact that Jeremy Wotherspoon didn't qualify for the 500m in Sochi was the second item on the news yesterday). It's one of the few sports we're actually pretty good at on the Olympics, apart from that other thing to do with water - swimming (and dressage, but somehow horse-related things never really catch on here).
Anyway, for the past 5 days, the qualification tournament for Sochi has been taking place, and it's been a fierce battle. The problem, if you can call it that, is that we have too many good skaters. We can only send 3 or 4 people for most distances, and we have about 8 good ones you want to send (some distances are better represented than others, but still most are pretty well covered). The qualifications are taking place in Thialf, which is the Dutch Valhalla of ice skating. And last Friday, I was there to watch the action.
This is probably the time to mention that I am not really a sports fan in the true sense of the word. To stick to skating: I cannot tell you what would be a good or bad time for any given distance. I cannot tell you the name of all the skaters. And when given a name, I could not tell you which team they're skating for, or who their coach (all old skating pros) is.
But I do like to watch. So far, I'd only watched the skating on TV, but now I was going in for the live thing. I'd never seen a real sporting competition up close and in person, and to tell you the truth, I've never really understood why people would go sit/stand in a cold windy stadium where they can only see a very small part of the action (or only very small players) while they could watch the same thing at home from different camera angles with meaningful commentary. Now I know: it's the atmosphere.
The distances we watched were the 500m for the men and the 3000m for the women. The 500m always has to be done twice, so that adds a lot of extra tension: a person having a good first go may falter on the second go around and still not qualify. Also, the skating was very, very good. Michel Mulder rode a track record on the 500m, and several other skaters were very very fast too. And most importantly, the whole stadium becomes one giant, living, breathing organism that can almost literally push a skater that little bit further by their shouting, cheering, clapping, and hammering on the wooden panelling. This sense of togetherness, of seeing a few individuals push themselves to the limit, carried by our cheers and well-wishes, and seeing them perform the things that we could never do, creates such a great atmosphere of beloging and togetherness and possibility, it's impossible not to join in the shouting and jumping and other crazy things. To me, at least.
So now I do understand why people go to sporting matches, even when it can be cold and uncomfortable and crowded and you can't see half the things you could if you were snugly at home. The thing that you don't get at home, the sense of belonging, makes up for all of that. So would I go there again? Definitely, but not too often. There are people who come to Thialf every day, who write down the times and know everybody's personal record by heart: that's not me. To me it is more of a special outing, and special things should be taken sparingly to keep them special. But it has given me new insights, and a great experience I will remember for a while to come.
But even without outdoor ice, things can get pretty exciting on indoor ice skating. There are two kinds: long track and short track, and the former is by far the more popular (although short track is catching on quickly). Apart from soccer, speed skating is probably the most popular sport in the Netherlands (which could be exemplified by the fact that Jeremy Wotherspoon didn't qualify for the 500m in Sochi was the second item on the news yesterday). It's one of the few sports we're actually pretty good at on the Olympics, apart from that other thing to do with water - swimming (and dressage, but somehow horse-related things never really catch on here).
Anyway, for the past 5 days, the qualification tournament for Sochi has been taking place, and it's been a fierce battle. The problem, if you can call it that, is that we have too many good skaters. We can only send 3 or 4 people for most distances, and we have about 8 good ones you want to send (some distances are better represented than others, but still most are pretty well covered). The qualifications are taking place in Thialf, which is the Dutch Valhalla of ice skating. And last Friday, I was there to watch the action.
This is probably the time to mention that I am not really a sports fan in the true sense of the word. To stick to skating: I cannot tell you what would be a good or bad time for any given distance. I cannot tell you the name of all the skaters. And when given a name, I could not tell you which team they're skating for, or who their coach (all old skating pros) is.
But I do like to watch. So far, I'd only watched the skating on TV, but now I was going in for the live thing. I'd never seen a real sporting competition up close and in person, and to tell you the truth, I've never really understood why people would go sit/stand in a cold windy stadium where they can only see a very small part of the action (or only very small players) while they could watch the same thing at home from different camera angles with meaningful commentary. Now I know: it's the atmosphere.
The distances we watched were the 500m for the men and the 3000m for the women. The 500m always has to be done twice, so that adds a lot of extra tension: a person having a good first go may falter on the second go around and still not qualify. Also, the skating was very, very good. Michel Mulder rode a track record on the 500m, and several other skaters were very very fast too. And most importantly, the whole stadium becomes one giant, living, breathing organism that can almost literally push a skater that little bit further by their shouting, cheering, clapping, and hammering on the wooden panelling. This sense of togetherness, of seeing a few individuals push themselves to the limit, carried by our cheers and well-wishes, and seeing them perform the things that we could never do, creates such a great atmosphere of beloging and togetherness and possibility, it's impossible not to join in the shouting and jumping and other crazy things. To me, at least.
So now I do understand why people go to sporting matches, even when it can be cold and uncomfortable and crowded and you can't see half the things you could if you were snugly at home. The thing that you don't get at home, the sense of belonging, makes up for all of that. So would I go there again? Definitely, but not too often. There are people who come to Thialf every day, who write down the times and know everybody's personal record by heart: that's not me. To me it is more of a special outing, and special things should be taken sparingly to keep them special. But it has given me new insights, and a great experience I will remember for a while to come.
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