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Running season
Running season
By Mary Franzen
Does the motivation of a surrounding group of people make another person want to keep up to the groups standards or their own? Is it better to run at your own pace or to the majoritys?
They run in packs along the lake front. We have all seen them with their heads down. You can hear them breathing, and every time I see them, I feel pity and self-pity at the exact same time because I would hate to be doing that on a hot day, but envy their ability.
You would be wise to get out of their way if you see them coming, because there is no stopping them. Its getting warmer out and the swarms of college students that are out running miles every day are taking over the campus streets and Lincoln Memorial Drive.
I prefer to run alone, and yeah maybe its because it gives me time to reflect on my life and blah, blah, blah, but its mostly because I would rather not anybody see how pathetically un-athletic I am (those who cant do usually write about it).
Anyway, I wonder if running in a group would make me want to push myself to the point of extreme strain. At track and cross country meets you might see young men and women after they break through the ribbon, run immediately to the side and start to vomit, or in intense cases wet themselves.
Does the motivation of a surrounding group of people make another person want to keep up to the groups standards or their own? Is it better to run at your own pace or to the majoritys? Without hesitation my answer (to my own question) was of course to do it your own way, stay in a constant competition with your self and what not.
But then I actually looked at my own patterns of exercise and wondered if that actually gets me anywhere? With no one looking, I take the cookie from the jar and start to walk down the sidewalk after about a block of running, while others speed past me. All my extremely athletic friends laugh at me and rightly so.
I can do better, we can all do better than what we let ourselves believe. We can take the easy route and call it a day but at the end of that day will we feel like we really got the best out of the exercise? Or anything for that matter?
We are social beings, so in this simple sense if you want to keep up an exercise that you feel you might slack on, get your self a spotter, preferably one that isnt me because we might just end up playing Guitar Hero.
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