Every year in the early spring, or “monsoon season,” as it
was known this year, I sign our three boys up for our elementary school’s
running club. Every Tuesday for seven weeks after school, the boys run for an
hour. It’s great! For me. I’m at home in my office getting work done. It’s
probably not so great for them, because they have to run.
The program is run (literally) by our amazing husband and
wife PTA president and vice president team. They are an awesome family, who all
seem to be constructed out of rubber, steel, boundless energy, and good looks. I
don’t know how they do it, but they’re definitely keeping up the average for
all the rest of us slacker families at the school.
Each week when they send out the reminder email, they
politely ask for any parental help we’re willing to offer. Here’s the thing - I
don’t sign my boys up for running club every year for physical fitness reasons,
or togetherness. They get plenty of exercise just beating each other up at home
every day, and I get plenty of interaction with them breaking up the fights. I
sign them up so I can get an extra hour in my office on Tuesdays. Since I’m two
years behind on my current book, that’s a good thing.
So, I have yet to show up and help with running club. I am
beginning to regret that decision.
You see, the whole point of running club (from the running
club organizer’s point of view, anyway), is to lead up to the big final event -
our town’s most popular annual foot race, the Run Rocklin. Every year so far, I
have gone along with the charade that we were all just doing this to train for
the 5K, and not to gain an extra hour in my day, so I’ve run the race with my
boys. And every year so far, I have survived. I’m not sure that’s going to be
the case this year.
The race is this Sunday, and as of today, I have logged
exactly no training miles. None whatsoever. In year’s past, I have always put
in some miles each week for four or five weeks before the race so I was at
least prepared to not die mid-race.
This year, however, things kept getting in the way of my
ability to train. Things like nachos. And beer. And naps. There was a lot on my
plate. (Actually, there was nothing on my plate by the time I was done eating,
but by then there was just no way to go for a run without turning my
after-nachos beer into a foamy mess. And what happens when that beer is gone?
You can’t run with a cooler. You see the problem.)
I’m already past the point of no return. It’s too close to
race day. Any training runs I manage do now will only hurt me, since I’m about
to turn forty-five years old. These days my muscle and joint recovery time from
a thirty-minute run is about a month and a half.
The only problem is, I need to keep up the charade. I need
to keep that extra hour in my week next year, so I need to run with my boys on
Sunday.
Since a traditional training regimen with actual running is
out of the question, I have cleverly devised a new plan. The Advil Training
Regimen should be my ticket to surviving the race.
Here’s the plan:
I’ll start with a standard dose of the anti-inflammatory
wonder drug today, taking 800mg on four-hour intervals. Tomorrow, I’ll up the
dosage to 1500mg and slowly decrease the interval times, so by race day I’ll have
worked up to 20,000mg every eleven seconds.
That should get enough ibuprofen in my system to allow me to
walk under my own power back to the car after the race, and at least army-crawl
out of bed on Monday morning. Sure, it may not be as wise as simply preparing
for the race by actual training, but that ship sailed, my friend. Now we must
get creative. And I really think this is the best course of action, because a
side benefit of the Advil Training Regimen is that you can wash ibuprofen down
with beer. That just makes good sense.
While compatibility with beer is a major plus, unfortunately,
the ATR will do nothing to prevent my lungs from collapsing and coming out my
nose if I try to keep up with Son Number Three. It will also do nothing to keep
my heart from simply exploding directly out of the front of my chest and onto
the pavement if I try to keep up with Son Number Two. Ibuprofen and beer can
only do so much.
Luckily, I think I can still pace with Son Number One, who is
not a fan of running at all, and will be complaining that 5K’s are stupid
before, during, and after the race, especially on the hills.
I hear you, man.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to head to Costco for some
more Advil. And beer.
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen
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