Brain & Body & Brendan

Ten minute tempo two minutes rest ten minute tempo two minutes rest. Starting the third bout my stomach was gurgling stronger than it had running the second one. Not to say I wasn’t tired, but I really felt good in the legs and lungs. The stomach had something else going on.

During the first lap it began with reminders to breathe deep, to find rhythm. The second lap, posture was snapped at, as if by standing straighter my stomach would be less full. The third lap, an argument between brain and stomach broke out. By the time the fourth lap was finishing up stomach was in a choke hold, with brain saying ten minutes or bust. And bust it was.

One hundred meters after the mile split I land on all fours, cabbage, bread, bile and hot dog flow faithfully out nose and mouth; a park spectacle to the hundred or so children and adults participating in a youth track practice. More and more it came, with ten second breaks that hint at a finish only to snicker away with a new round of gut hurling. Jen passes by, in the throws of her third ten minute bout, words of encouragement out of her mouth exchanges with my thumbs up as an acidic mucus mixture drains from nose, moustache and mouth held parallel to the ground.

Finally done, not some mirage of settled stomach, I stand up. I really wanted to do at least three by ten minutes. Glancing at my watch, it has only been one minute forty seconds since I stopped to puke; the eternity of experience a reality of just over sixty seconds. Hopping onto the line I head out; stomach and brain in agreement again.

Finishing the twelve hundred meter bout, and getting thirty minutes total tempo running, I stop, sit down to untie and remove a shoe. Jen is starting her fourth bout, and it impresses me. One shoe is already off and damn it all, I am going to do more. Getting my shoe on and running seconds later, I have taken three minute rest. A little longer than I hoped, but heading out feeling good is not undesirable.

The first lap is smooth but tiring. As the second lap begins, the stomach asks how long is this going to be. The brain stonewalls the stomach, as always annoyed to be reminded it serves the body as much as the body serves it, through the next six hundred meters. Starting the fourth lap, the stomach reminds the brain what happens if it pushes its luck. Agreeing to not repeat the last events, I finish the fourth lap, strong in the legs but stomach almost ready for another show. The track practice participants, with parents abound, watched me from corners of eyes and with occasional whisper or reminder to child not to laugh. Some of them are like me, an athlete, and some are too young to understand the accord between brain and body.

I called it while I was ahead, this time. Not the first time I have puked at the track, probably won’t be the last, but it was the most in volume and the only time I went onto to do ten more minutes of hard running. I am not saying that is for all athletes, but all runners know what it is like, in the middle of a race or hard run, when your mind says more and your body say no. You learn to listen to your body, or your body makes you listen. And then comes that moment, of cosmic hilarity, often involving bodily fluids and/ or fecal matter, where, against some might say any reasonable sense, we continue doing that which just moments ago afflicted us!