Vorlon Whispers

Listen to Your Body My A**

For many weeks now, when I’ve discussed exercising, I’ve had people including the medical professionals tell me to “listen to my body.” I thought I’d done that. I stopped jogging and went to walking my two-miles every day.

Well the listening part is over. If we all listened to our bodies, all most of us would do is sleep and sit in front of the TV eating snack food.

From now on, the conversation with my body will be a dialogue. I will listen, but with a critical ear.

I started jogging again this morning during my two-mile “walk”. The first mile I only jogged about 15 percent of the way. I found I was dressed too warmly for jogging. I was OK for walking but jogging need fewer clothes.

Since my exercise route is two one-mile loops that go right past my house, I stopped at the house after the first mile, shed my overcoat, put on my jogging jacket, and hit the road again. On my second lap, I jogged about 50% of the distance.

As I’m jogging, I’m listening to how my body is responding and I’m talking back. I said to my body, “You lied to me! You told me you didn’t think you could jog. This is easy. I’m barely breathing hard.”

Indeed the jogging was much easier than it had been two months ago. I didn’t go into oxygen debt as I used to. One of the things I missed by NOT jogging is, I never tested my aerobic capacity. Each time I go out and jog, I’m testing my body to see how it responds to aerobic stress.

From now one, I’m giving the orders. I’ve had enough of passivity. Mind you, I understand how one can overdue exercise. Many winters ago, I jogged regularly and usually totaled 40 miles a week.

I have run 5K, 5 mile, 10K, 10 mile, half marathon and marathon races. There are many lessons to learn in long distance aerobic competition. One learns preparation, and concentration. During a race, concentration is paramount. During competition, one’s body is in a lot of pain. However, the athlete has to re-interpret that pain. The pain becomes an indicator of how close to the max one in performing.

Lance Armstrong has written about the pain of training and competition. If people could experience the pain he felt in training and in competition, they would recoil in horror. But we have a saying when one experiences that pain in competition and one does well athletically. We way it “hurt so fine.”

I guess this is a long-winded way to say, I’m back in command. From now on jogging is back in the routine and I’ll see how it goes.

Posted by The Vorlon at December 21, 2005 6:37 AM