‘The simple joy is even made more profound these days because of the reason why I started in the first place — when even condo gyms were closed I realized that my physical condition could deteriorate rapidly unless I took matters into my own hands (actually my feet).’
YESTERDAY morning, surgical mask on and Adidas rain repellant cap on my head, I took off from my place of residence at BGC to cover some five kilometers for my high intensity interval training that I try to do every other day.
High intensity interval is an exercise regimen where you alternate short bursts of energetic exertion with a longer period of recovery; but it is critical that the short burst of energy exertion leaves you gasping for breath and ideally unable to engage in some form of oral conversation.
You can, of course, gesture with your hands and tell your friend by cutting a finger across your throat that you’ve overdone it; or you can clutch your breast, leaving your jogging partners giggling because knowing how much you love to joke they think you’re up to your antics again. Of course, until your lips turn blue and then they panic.
My alarm clock used to wake me up at 4:30 in the morning and then I found a better solution: have the AC turn off at 4:30 and in no time I begin to sweat and wake up. But because I started this practice in March of last year — the first time I took up pounding the pavement in my 57 years of existence — it’s now my body clock that wakes me up at 4:30 a.m. even if the AC is on and way before my alarm goes off.
It’s waking up at what many will insist is an ungodly hour.
And yet I do it because of the simple joy of going out and pounding the pavement and finding myself gasping for breath at times brings me. I’m not a sado-masochist but I have to admit I now understand the term “runner’s high” that I used to hear in my much younger days.
The simple joy is even made more profound these days because of the reason why I started in the first place — when even condo gyms were closed I realized that my physical condition could deteriorate rapidly unless I took matters into my own hands (actually my feet). I also told myself that like everyone else I had to protect myself from COVID — from not getting it in the first place or, should I fall ill, from dying from the disease. And I calculated that there were two critical organs I needed to get in shape — my heart and my lungs — and what better way to do this (with the exception of sex) than to lace up and pound the pavement?
My COVID experience, I think, validated the logic behind my decision to buy my first pair of running shoes in March of 2020 and take the first step. Save for the period when I had to lay in bed in room 1167 of St Luke’s BGC (and some rainy days and lockdown restrictions) I have more or less kept at it since then.
What can be gruesome idea to some is a simple joy for me.
Yesterday morning, as I was doing the run part of my HIIT routine (and trying to evade two BGC guards who were about to accost me for holding and not wearing my mask) a memory hit of another simple joy, this one from childhood — and one perhaps lost forever to generations after mine. It was the simple joy of childhood where you await the arrival of the big soft drinks delivery truck because you had bottle caps (tansan!) to exchange for whatever was the promo of the period.
Who of my generation didn’t go through this? Whether it was free product (you had to exchange an empty bottle to get a new unopened bottle) or a yo-yo, or cardboard planes you launched with a rubber band, the big (usually red) truck was like Santa’s sleigh that you waited for at a set time and day of the week when it did its replenishment run of the local sari-sari store.
Of course, before you could even wait for the truck you needed a bottle cap. Which meant that you always tried to find an excuse to buy soda pop; better still you’d grab as many of the crowns that fell when you had guests at home who were to be given ice cold glasses of the stuff. The first part of the simple joy was scratching the cork off the inside of the tansan, with the cork later replaced by some plastic like cover. And then you had the second part, which was discovering what you had won — which “qualified” you to await the arrival of the truck later that week.
I guess I was wrong; I did take up running quite early in my life. Because many times it would be too late before I found out that the truck had passed — so off I had to run, usually in slippers, following the truck to its next stop, thankfully another sari-sari store nearby.
And yes, sometimes I’d get the prized item even if my “Japanese slippers” gave way in the process.
It’s hard for me to think about that simple joy these days when I know that many kids will never understand what it felt, and harder still knowing that there are so many other simple joys I wish for but will never be able to achieve.
Like getting someone fired from the Cabinet for being an ineffective crybaby who has deluded himself (and his boss) into thinking he is God’s gift to public health.
Can’t any of the beverage companies put that under the crown?
Wanna bet — your sales will hit the roof!
And you’ll make tons of money!
Isn’t that maybe the best simple joy there is?
