In one of my very favorite movies, “Chariots of Fire”, the great British runner Harold Abrahams is asked if he enjoys running.  He responds, “I am more of an addict.”  I fall probably somewhere in between those two categories.  Sometimes I might say that I “enjoy” running: when I am in shape, and the weather is good, and I finish a run with a burst — “like a strong man running his course”, as Psalm 19 says.  But many, many times running is nothing but an exercise of the body and of the will – especially in the smothering heat we have had in Louisiana lately. 

I have run off and on for most of my adult life, and over that time I have had many “learning” experiences.  One reads or hears of different “helps” for runners, but obviously some pieces of advice are better than others.  Some have led to downright embarrassing moments for me.  Since I am in a self-deprecating mood, I will share a couple of them.

The first “official” run I ever took part in was the “Harrah Day” run in my home town of Harrah, Oklahoma.  I was in college, and had just started to run a few miles a week on a regular basis.  When I saw that they were having a 5k (3.1 mile) run to celebrate Harrah Day, I signed up.  Since I had never participated in a “real” road race before, I was very, very nervous.  I began to read up on the sport of running, with which I was not that familiar.  One of the things I read about was the practice of “carb packing”, getting a lot of carbohydrates into your body in advance of a race, so that you have plenty of energy to burn.  In my youthful ignorance, I bought a can of potatoes, which looked to me like it had a lot of carbs, and I nibbled on it the whole night before the Saturday race.  As I said, I was very nervous, and did not sleep well that Friday night, so every time I woke up, I ate more of those potatoes, comforting myself with the thought that these would really help me the next day.  It was NOT a good idea.  First of all, when the race started, I made the mistake that most inexperienced runners make: that of getting caught up in all of the excitement and taking off WAY too fast at the start.  About a mile into the race, I got sick, and all of those potatoes ended up right in the middle of the road.  Not very pretty.  To my credit, after about 30 seconds of walking, I began to run again, undaunted.  I ended up completing the race, and actually did not have that bad of a finishing time, all things considered.  However, I have not been real big on “carb packing” since — especially not potatoes! 

My second episode is worse, because I was a few years older, and should have been wiser, but oh, how sense can fly out the window when one is seeking any advantage.  This was in Tulsa, in the 1990’s; I was now in my 30’s.  I had started running with my two sons, Paul & David, who were in elementary school.  We were going to do a neat run in Tulsa, which began as a road race out on the streets of the city, but ended with a grand finish into Driller Stadium, where the local AA team played baseball.  I had been training for several months in this most recent running stint, and felt like I was in pretty good shape.  I was looking forward to a great run; I could just envision a glorious finish into that stadium with a new personal record time.  However, a misheard conversation would seal my doom.  I overhead a couple of veteran runners talking about what they were doing to get ready for the race, and one of them said: “Of course, the most important thing on race day is to make sure that you are hydrated” – that is, to have a lot of water in your system.  This is, indeed, one of the most important keys in running.  However, this is not what I heard him say.  I thought he said, “The most important thing on race day is to make sure that you are DE-hydrated.”  I wondered at his statement at first, but in my warped logic, thought that perhaps having too much water in your system might bog you down or whatever, so I decided, unfortunately to take what I thought was this veteran runner’s advice.  Surely he knew!  So I decided to make sure that I was good and dehydrated for the race.  I didn’t have any water before I went to bed the evening before the race, and NONE that next morning.  I was good and de-hydrated all right!  Well, that in itself was a recipe for disaster, but the worst was to come.  This race was held in the spring in Tulsa.  It had been very mild, in the mid-70’s or perhaps 80 for highs.  The day of the race it shot up to 92, much hotter than anything I had trained in.  And most of the race was run on a blacktop Tulsa road for 3 miles leading up to the stadium, the sun baking us the whole way. As you can imagine I died many a death on the road that morning; every step seemed to be in quicksand.  Looking back, I don’t know how I even finished the course so dehydrated, but I did.  (I would almost be proud of the fact that I finished — were I not so embarrassed about my gullible, foolish ignorance.  What kind of idiot … ?!)   The green grass of the baseball field did indeed look glorious when I entered the stadium – akin to seeing glory — but I felt so poorly that I could not enjoy it.  No one had to tell me – I already knew.  I had misheard the man.  I needed water.  I needed to be HYDRATED. 

Well, I began running again earlier this year.  I am starting to get into some facsimile of conditioning – in fact, due to a number of evening meetings, etc., many of my runs have had to be at 4 or 5:00 in the heat of the day, and I have done fine with it.  If I can keep it up, I hope to do another road race soon.  I’ve looked at the race results they have printed in the paper here in the Lake Charles area, and I think I would finish in the middle of the pack of most of them; hopefully I wouldn’t embarrass myself.  But you never know!  I just read an article the other day, which advocated something I had never seen before: putting a pinch or more of salt into one’s drink before a run – to help the body hold water during the workout.  Sounds interesting … but in light of some of my previous experiences, I think I am going to take that advice with a grain of salt!