The weirdest thoughts come bubbling up from my subconscious when I’m running.
Today it was the realization that my junior year high school track season started exactly 10 years ago this month.
What stands out most about that year was the fact that I had long hair past my shoulders. This wasn’t motivated out of some sort of teenage rebellion. It was far geekier than that.
I had a goal time I wanted to reach in cross country and track, and for some reason I decided I wasn’t going to cut my hair until I reached one of them. After 2 1/2 years my hair was still growing, and growing, and growing.
I remember being obsessed with those goals and throwing everything I could think of at that problem. I ingested vitamins and supplements by the handful. I invested in a $140 pair of track spikes. I started an intense 5x a week weight-lifting routine.
One summer I ran 320 miles, and came into the season completely burned out. The next summer I took a whole month off and came into the season overweight and out of shape. Both extremes were disastrous.
I started bringing my lunch to school and put extremely narrow restrictions on my diet. I made bagels that contained copious amounts of flax seed, oat bran and whatever else I could stuff in there. I was kind of a weird kid.
I was also kind of a nervous wreck for days leading up to any meet. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and the haircut-goal was not helping matters.
I’m happy to report I don’t have long hair anymore. I did meet my goal in one of the final meets of the year. I ran a 4:48 mile and afterward got my hair buzzed clean.
But this got me thinking about how (if any) I’ve changed in the last decade.
I’ll spare the long-winded introspection, but I came to this conclusion long ago: It doesn’t pay to put so much pressure on yourself. When I relax and have fun, I’m not only a much happier person, but my performance improves. Goals are good. Obsessions can be ruinous.
I also couldn’t help another thought: Could I still run that fast?
By this time I was already well into my run. But I decided to veer off course and jog on over to a high school track.
There I toed the starting line, hit my stop watch and started off on four laps around the track. All the while wind was whipping freezing rain in my face and my clothes were soaked.
I finished a mile in 5 minutes 40 seconds. But I won’t be growing my hair out again.
