{"id":612,"date":"2024-12-19T09:56:22","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T14:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=612"},"modified":"2024-12-19T09:56:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T14:56:22","slug":"going-cross-country-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=612","title":{"rendered":"Going Cross Country (1991)"},"content":{"rendered":"

MUD!!<\/em> Salons smear it on their customers’ faces\u2014and youth is restored.\u00a0 Johnny Cash mixed it with blood and beer and rekindled his relationship with father.\u00a0 Kids bake it.\u00a0 Potters shape it.\u00a0 Shamans cure ills with it.\u00a0 What marvellous stuff!\u00a0 Surely it be magic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In case it escaped your attention, your average road racer is something of an intense character.\u00a0 The speed work, the frustration of the year’s goals unrealized, the summer’s heat; who knows what the equation contains.\u00a0 The sum is always the same: a runner with sore joints, a full log\u2014and an attitude.\u00a0 Take a look at the start line faces come September.\u00a0 Not a happy lot!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well folks, I’m here to tell ya that the cure ain’t to be found in a Runner’s World <\/em>diet, another “fool proof” training schedule, or visualization.\u00a0 It’s MUD!<\/em>\u00a0 I’m forty-three and I use it to cleanse my runner’s soul each Fall.\u00a0 Now I’m not going to go all quasi-philosophic or white-suit preacher on ya\u2014although, for a $5.00 donation, I will<\/em> send you a 100% guaranteed starter kit of your own (just add water and stir).\u00a0 You don’t have to coat your body in it, eat it, heat it, or electrify it.\u00a0 You just have to stand<\/em> in it.\u00a0 Yessir! I’m talkin’ muck<\/em>, and that rhymes with _uck<\/em> and that stands for FUN!<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What a ludicrous idea.\u00a0 Having fun running.\u00a0 Where’s the competition?\u00a0 The thrill of victory (or more commonly, the agony of defeat)?\u00a0 The $3.00 medal or the “Certificate of Participation”?\u00a0 Tell the truth folks, they ain’t there.\u00a0 There’s just you, a few dirty friends, and nature.\u00a0 Pretty weird, eh?\u00a0 Well, hear me out and, if not fully satisfied, toss me on the pile of used snake oil salesman and go back to your hard, cold asphalt.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All right.\u00a0 I confess.\u00a0 It’s not the mud that heals\u2014it’s Cross Country running.\u00a0 Several years back, a well-meaning acquaintance suggested that, in place of the usual “Sunday long one”, we go for a trot over at Wildwood<\/em>, our local Conservation Area.\u00a0 Understating it, I was appalled.\u00a0 Did she know the distances (measured to the nearest centimetre)?\u00a0 How ’bout time?\u00a0 Could she guarantee hitting target heart rate?\u00a0 And the fragile ankles\u2014on the roads, pebbles the size of peas raise the spectre of sprains and tears.\u00a0 What would sole-sucking, tendon-twanging sink holes do to this frail frame?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My friend adopted that kindly, patient posture reserved for wizened sage – airhead apprentice chats and explained that this was not about speed or killer aerobic pace.\u00a0 It was about enjoyment and recovery.\u00a0 Leave your watch at home, slip on these spikes, and try not to stab yourself getting out of the car, was all she’d say.\u00a0 I was not<\/em> convinced.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had been<\/em> in the country before.\u00a0 I live<\/em> in the country.\u00a0 But I most certainly had not run<\/em> in the country\u2014at least not without benefit of road signs, pavement, and a clear view of the next ten feet of route.\u00a0 I’m not exactly the kind of person who gets lost coming out of a subway station\u2014but neither am I Daniel Boone.\u00a0 How was I supposed to know where I was going on these path things that she proposed following.\u00a0 Why, in some places there were just trees and bushes; no arrows or signs warning you off a twenty-foot precipice.\u00a0 Again, the patient reply: follow the orange blazes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, I don’t know what kind of twisted sadist marked the trails at Wildwood<\/em> in orange, but he surely did it in high summer or the dead of winter\u2014when your ubiquitous stands of maple trees were either green or leafless.\u00a0 Let me tell you how hard it is to pick out a sloppy splash of orange paint on a tree resplendent with Autumn colour!<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Good ol’ Acer saccharum <\/em>(that would be sugar maple, for those of us without grade 10 biology) is not the only bit of flora to be found in this woody wonderland.\u00a0 Burdock thrives as well and, according to my daughter’s World Book Encyclopedia<\/em>, is known to be “troublesome\u00bcit’s seed heads stick(ing) to the hair of cattle and sheep”.\u00a0 News flash!\u00a0 It sticks to human beings clad in spandex as well.\u00a0 This may have been the stimulus that prompted some creative Frenchman to design the prototypical Velcro<\/em> fastener\u2014but I don’t necessarily want to return from my runs looking like some cowboy wearing hairy chaps.\u00a0 (The sage’s advice: “ditch the tights”.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Among the more attractive parts of my friend’s sales pitch was the solitude offered by our scheduled commune with nature.\u00a0 This would certainly be a welcome switch from the all too familiar struggle to stake out one’s turf on city streets.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No dogs, no irate motorists, no head-down commuter cyclists.\u00a0 All true.\u00a0 In fact, if you haven’t had your monthly existential panic, try inducing it by running alone in the woods.\u00a0 One’s mind starts to play subtle little tricks\u2014like my flashback to Mirkwood<\/em>.\u00a0 Sure, to the casual observer that dense grove of spruce may be just another clump of conifers.\u00a0 To the edgy, citified runner it bears an uncanny resemblance to the legendary home of Tolkien’s Orcs and Great Spiders.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Neither is this to say that the only fauna to be found in them thar woods is imaginary.\u00a0 At least I think that clutch of round-faced boy scouts we surprised, mid-breakfast was real.\u00a0 Certainly the sounds of scout master Bob trying to restore the sense of blissful isolation and “roughing it in the bush” for his boys\u2014so rudely intruded upon by two runners in red tights\u2014could be heard far down the path.\u00a0 But then I wouldn’t want to sell short the hallucinogenic powers of the place; after all it was Wild<\/em>wood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But I digress.\u00a0 We did emerge at long last\u2014burdock pom poms where our shoe laces had been; brackish, black gunk oozing out around our ankles (oops, sorry, those are socks); and mud (magical mud) from head to heel.\u00a0 Miraculously, no broken bones or twisted ankles (although my hamstrings did feel like someone was beating on them with a five pound sledge).\u00a0 And best of all\u2014I felt marvellous!\u00a0 Positively rejuvenated.\u00a0 I looked over at my friend and (from what I could see of her face), she was smiling.\u00a0 And so was I.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MUD!! Salons smear it on their customers’ faces\u2014and youth is restored.\u00a0 Johnny Cash mixed it with blood and beer and rekindled his relationship with father.\u00a0 Kids bake it.\u00a0 Potters shape it.\u00a0 Shamans cure ills with it.\u00a0 What marvellous stuff!\u00a0 Surely it be magic. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In case it escaped your attention, your average road racer is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}