I’m sick and tired of hearing, “The summer is going so fast!” What a silly, silly comment! Then I remember who is making that very comment, multiple times daily. Me.
But it (summer, life) really is, and it got me thinking about other fast stuff.
The other day, our Peter (age 8) asked me, “Why do people say ‘slow and steady wins the race? Shouldn’t it be ‘FAST and steady’? I began telling him about the Aesop’s fable, and about halfway through I just stopped and agreed with him. One does not enter a race dawdling, then expecting to be victorious! I do cut Aesop some slack, though—running races was something that was just not done in his ancient Greek culture (right?) **
Several Seyfrieds have taken up running over the years, and two of us have written about it. Ironically, JUST after I had started putting this week’s newsletter together, with this piece I wrote for Delaware Beach Life, I read Rose’s latest on HER Substack and what do you know? Same subject (though her take is much deeper). So I’m including hers too!
ESSAY: ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK (DELAWARE BEACH LIFE MAGAZINE)
I have never smoked pot or dropped acid or mainlined heroin. This is not to brag: I just never developed those habits. But I do enjoy those moments of experiencing a “high” --preferably a natural one. I adore the sense of heightened reality that takes me out of the doldrums of the present moment. For example, I have experienced childbirth five times. While labor itself is no picnic, the moments right after delivery provide a definite rush. Another brief high: I have purchased several Powerball tickets, and while the subsequent letdown always far outweighs the passing thrill, I love the elation of watching those little bouncing numbered balls on TV and coming, once or twice, this close to a jackpot.
As I approached age 56, I was struggling with the blues. My medication plus aging (plus, truth be told, zero exercise) had caused some weight gain that I wasn’t shedding, and I was tired and sluggish all the time. My husband and most of my offspring are recreational runners, and sing the mood-lifting praises of a brisk jog. Excited about the possibility of feeling great again by taking part in the family racing fun, I signed up for a succession of training programs.
These included “Couch to 5K,” “Take the Running Challenge!!” and a regimen suggested by my friend Consy. That last one involved running a mere 20 steps the first outing, 30 the next, and so on. At that rate I’d be 90 years old before I could hit a mile, but I didn’t mind the slow pace. “Couch to 5K” ended with me choosing Couch. I totally botched the Running Challenge, and indeed found the regular pep talks supremely annoying (”You got this!” isn’t even good grammar, for Heaven’s sake!) And while I struggled along with Consy for a while, my mind would wander during the step counting and I’d lose track. Have I run 50 steps? 500? Why bother? I’d think. I’ll count donuts instead!
I switched over to leisurely and infrequent walks , convincing myself that the 60 minute mile was just as beneficial as the four minute mile. But the scale didn’t budge, and I never broke a sweat, nor were there any other outward signs of improved physical fitness.
Nevertheless, my family kept after me. Eventually, I caved, and decided to try and keep up with my daughters, the Swift Seyfried Sisters. That summer, I proposed a run together on the Rehoboth boardwalk. I foolishly thought the pleasant company would make the mile(s) fly, and imagined the three of us chatting companionably, our sneakered feet pounding the weathered wooden boards. Maybe by November I’d be far enough along to join husband Steve and the kids for the annual Thanksgiving Turkey Trot back home in PA! Visions of numbers pinned on shirts and post-run beers danced in my head all the way into town.
Who was I kidding?
Rose and Julie began by warming up, bending and stretching to beat the band. I had no patience for such a sensible routine, preferring as always to take off from a dead standstill. So for the first 10 or 20 feet, I was definitely in the lead. But then they started to move. I picked up my pace, trying desperately to stay within their zip code. At one point I caught up with my daughters. “How are you doing, Mom?” they asked. I had assumed I’d at least be able to answer them, but all I could do was nod and give them a wobbly thumbs up. It quickly became clear that no conversation was possible on my end. Meanwhile my kids kept up a lively back-and-forth. They were so engrossed in pleasant talk that neither of them noticed that their mother had peeled off and was sitting, head between knees, on a white bench, trying hard not to vomit.
My run with the girls was an abject failure. They were very sweet, but I could tell I’d slipped a notch in their estimation. That would have been it for a lesser (or maybe a reasonable) mortal, but I decided to give running one final shot the next July. I laced up my sneaks and began my new, hopefully improved, approach--which was really just a jumbled blend of every method I’d attempted before. I leapt up from the couch; I muttered encouraging mantras to myself; I counted every single step.
Lo and behold, it was working! I was suddenly Mom in Motion! The landmarks flew by: Henlopen Hotel, Dolle’s, Funland! I was now in the section with the residential streets (Hickman! Stockley! Saint Lawrence!) and I waited for the inevitable cramps and shooting calf pains that always halted my progress. But…nothing! In fact, I felt great! I was breathing easily and striding smoothly. Half a mile! One mile! Now I was at boardwalk’s end and circling back for the return trip. Where were my girls to witness this momentous occasion? I wanted to chat with someone, anyone, just to prove I could run and talk at the same time!
After two miles of nirvana (which, according to Buddhists and Hindus, is the “highest” state one can attain), I still felt I could run back up Highway One all the way to Philadelphia, a mere 120 miles. In the car, I dialed Rose. “I don’t know what came over me, but I felt I could run forever!!” I reported. “Uh, Mom?” she replied. “It’s the endorphins.. Runner’s high. You’ve never had that before? Seriously, it’s the best reason to run!” I had Endorphins! Glory Hallelujah!! By the time I reached Lewes, I was planning my next moves: The 10 mile Broad Street Run! Better yet: The Boston Marathon! I sprinted into the condo, and even did a couple of cool down stretches before flopping onto the couch.
That was seven years ago. It’s never happened again. After a tantalizingly brief visit to my body, my Endorphins deserted me for good. On the next outing, my friends Cramps and Nausea had returned, and have been with me ever since.
Nowadays, I’m mostly back on the good old couch, leafing through Steve’s copies of Runner’s World. I still have my workout gear, though, and harbor a wild hope that someday, probably when I least expect it, I’ll get (runner’s) high again.
But that’s what every addict says, right?
Maybe I’d better quit while I’m ahead.
“RUNNING ON THIN ICE” BY ROSE SEYFRIED (THE DRAFT):
Quick ad for Rose’s wonderful Substack—inviting you to subscribe!
There is a group of people in the world, mostly people I knew when I was in college in Boston, who know me as a runner. An actual, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other runner.
And I can see where they got that impression. I’ve never ever identified as a runner but if you do enough running the label is eventually accurate regardless of your feelings about it.
And I do have feelings about it. My relationship with running has seen many different seasons.
When I first started running, it must have been to try to lose weight. I was 12 and I disliked my skin suit because I was 12 and a girl so I guess I started running about it. It’s never come particularly easily to me, nothing athletic really does. I have some physical activity hobbies now that I genuinely enjoy but they’re hard won.
I have always been unusually uncoordinated. Way late in life I figured out that I am more or less stereo-blind which means I only see out of one eye at a time, the result of woefully weak eye muscles which did result in adorably crossed eyes when I was a kid but ultimately required three painful surgeries to try to fix. It turns out if your eyes are not able to work together effectively from the beginning they sort of… unconsciously uncouple. My left eye has gone no contact with my right. It affects my depth perception, my ability to gauge space and distance. Shove me into a yoga class and I’m the one with great posture and balance (stop laughing it’s true) but the second there’s an element of something like a ball moving quickly around or at me in space it’s figuratively, and often literally, game over. I simply cannot triangulate where it is with enough time to catch it or hit it or kick it or whatever is appropriate per the game at hand.
Running was minimally dependent on complex coordination and could be done anywhere. Whatever the motivation, it became a regularly reached-for activity for me.
One summer in college I lost a bunch of weight, and the two secrets to doing that were not letting myself eat anything that tasted good at all, and running, like, a ton. It was also the summer my skin actually got tan—never before and never again. I looked “great” and was, personality-wise, the lamest I’ve ever been. Full on deal with the Devil.
When I got back to school, I developed an obsession with proving to myself that I could continue to be extremely disciplined about running all the way through the winter in Boston. I’ve always been fiercely disciplined when it comes to things I think are important (and aggressively lax about the many things I don’t.) I decided it was important and then I ran two days on, one day off for almost two years. No exceptions. If I missed a day, I made it up. If there was a snowstorm, and there were a lot of them, I still went out. My alarm clock would go off at 6:30AM most weekday mornings, and I would rocket out of bed. I knew that if I hesitated for even a second I wouldn’t get up.
I would eat a banana in our dark, quiet, cold apartment and head out. I would run down Boylston Street, which was completely empty at that time of day, and around Boston Common, often doing multiple laps. I tried to hit 4 miles, at least. I would get back to my apartment, which was still dark quiet and cold, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with coffee (which, weirdly, is still one of my favorite breakfasts) sitting at my desk and then I would sit quietly and use the additional 90 minutes of time I had before class overthinking myself into a mild anxiety attack.
Because that’s the thing, with this hyper-disciplined stuff. Sometimes it’s fine, and good, and sometimes it’s a sign of acute mental distress. You convince yourself it’s a virtue but in reality you’re just desperate for something to obsess over that isn’t the crippling fear that has been coming up more often lately. In the months leading up to my first psychiatrist appointment I had achieved on-paper perfection with my running routine and was all in the name of not dealing with the feeling of generalized terror that wouldn’t let up.
I would say my relationship with running now is much less emotionally charged. I still go through periods where I do it but it’s not a constant in my life, and when I do choose to do it, it’s a reasonably neutral endeavor. If I find myself in a new city, I’ll go on a run as a means of exploring, almost always ending up wherever they keep the good desserts.
I do periodically think back to this unhappy time in my life and marvel at how beyond obvious this avoidance tactic was. How I would distract myself (and also punish myself? It was complicated) by obsessing about getting in the miles. But I’ve never blamed running for this stretch. If it wasn’t running, my hyperfixation would have been something else. Frankly, I’m grateful that this was what presented itself to me when I needed something to occupy my mind instead of something much more destructive, like drugs, or Malcolm Gladwell.
LIST: 20 Ridiculously Fast Animals
“Slow and steady”—hah! (right, Peter?) If you sign up for a 5K and see one of these guys on the list, just give up! Example: The fastest recorded peregrine falcon hit 242 miles per hour!
And then there’s…
FAST FOOD…
Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock made Super Size Me back in 2004, during which he ate nothing but McDonald’s offerings three times a day for a month, as an experiment. By month’s end he had gained 25 lbs, developed liver and other health problems, and he later said, “my body never really recovered.” I remember showing the movie to the high school youth group I led while working at church, and it made quite an impression. Check out this funny/scary clip…
FILM CLIP: SUPER SIZE ME
Of course, not all quickly prepped food is bad for you. Here are two dishes I make often—both delicious and (relatively) nutritious, both fast to fix!
RECIPES: GREAT FLAVORS, FAST
APPETIZER: ROASTED ARGENTINE RED SHRIMP
You can use any type of shrimp—I just love the sweet flavor of Argentine red shrimp, widely available frozen at the supermarket. In any event, thaw shrimp but do not peel. Toss with olive oil (1Tb per pound of shrimp), sea salt and coarse-ground pepper. Arrange on baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees until cooked through (approximately 6-10 minutes). Serve warm or cold, with any kind of dipping sauce you like (my favorites are mayonnaise mixed with a little saffron that has been softened in a bit of white wine; another yummy one is mayo mixed with basil pesto (I make pesto in bulk and freeze in ice cube trays to make little pesto cubes that can be thawed quickly)…
DESSERT: PEACH CRUMB BARS
Don’t be intimidated by time listed in the recipe—90% of that is baking time. The peaches and batter are a snap to assemble, and a wonderful way to enjoy this quintessential summer fruit!
SONG: “CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE” BY JIMMY BUFFETT
Ode to the humble cheeseburger, written and performed by the one and only (and much missed) laid-back troubadour…
BLOG PREVIEW: DINNER @ NONNA’S
The other night hubs and I watched Nonnas, a feel-good flick based on a true story. How was it? Did I, in fact, feel-good? Movie review time over at Working Title!
INSPIRATIONAL QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
I stumbled upon (get it?) this quote from The Odyssey, which extols the virtues of running and other physical activity. Wait, what? Running races WAS a big thing in Ancient Greece?? Whoops. I take the above asterisked paragraph of the newsletter back, then (sorry, Aesop!) **
Seriously, I hope your week goes just fast enough (the tough stuff), but not too fast (the good stuff). Pace yourselves, my friends!
