Think of all the runners who listen to music, podcasts or audiobooks during a run. Or at the very least we don't know how to react to them over such a prolonged period.Įven some runners don't get used to it. Our thoughts, with no barrier between us and them for an extended period of time, can be unpleasant. We turn on music in the car to keep our brains mildly preoccupied, we have tabs open in our work browsers to fill downtime, and we poke at our phones at every idle moment. It's that when you're running, the physical sensations will occupy some of your thoughts, but a lot of the time, you're simply alone with your thoughts and unable to escape them. But - as with anything in this blog - it's not painful unless we interpret it as such.Ī common complaint for those who don't want to run to get in shape is that it's "boring." And we generally don't question this, because, sure, running doesn't seem too exciting on the surface.Īt least in some cases, though, I think it's something else. There's another type of pain that I associate with running. So it's not that runner's don't feel those burning lungs. Once you hit the runner's high, your body sort of naturally reinterprets these sensations as more pleasurable. A lot of running is simply your legs and lungs burning in varying degrees. I've experienced this I can vouch for its existence. Running is pain for many, but long-time runners will tell you about the "runner's high" which is a semi-euphoric state they reach at levels of intense exertion. It wasn't just tolerating the cold it was embracing it. I'd even take my coat, hat and gloves off at times to soak in the stinging cold more fully. But I learned to love the pain of the cold, of the trudge. I didn't really call it that it was born of necessity. Instead, I took it as a mental training exercise. These things did nothing to help me plan better. But it did become a problem in the winter, where we'd experience high winds, freezing temps, rain and sleet, and high-packed snow to trudge through. No huge detriment it was about 1.5 miles. Planning thoughtfully wasn't in my DNA yet.Īnd so I'd often end up walking home. I could make it if I planned thoughtfully. It was a combination of where my final class was, how late the teacher (in this case, music conductor) let us out, the packing up I needed to do, how far away my locker was from this class, and how far the bus was from that locker. When I was in high school, I had an improbably difficult trek at the end of the day to make it to my bus home on time. Some anecdotes to work us toward a thesis. Thus, it's only our interpretation of the sensation(s) that makes it good or bad. But it's the sensation(s) I prefer to the more benign rubbing of a traditional Swedish-style massage.īut the levels of physical discomfort are objectively similar. I just discovered the ultra-intense Ashiatsu massage, where the pressures possible threaten to find even my limit. I'll get the deep tissue massage every time, which, let's be very clear, would code as "pain" for many, and isn't always relaxing for me in a traditional sense. We could extend the comparison to various other types of work or physical duress as well.īut the workout, for many, codes internally as a good thing, occasionally even something that's overtly pleasurable. Philosopher Sam Harris has observed - and I'm paraphrasing here - that the pain associated with all kinds of unpleasant things is no greater, and often far less, than the levels of pain experienced by the body during a hard workout.
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