Beard of the Day

I hate the Steelers, but DE Brett Keisel has a respectable beard

Story

In the fall of 2008, I was getting bored with the bodybuilding routine I was doing. It had been a few years since I played (very small-time) football in college and intramural sports were the only thing I “competed” in. I decided I wanted more of a performance type training program because I didn’t want to lose my athletic ability. My friend Shawn and I were catching a pump in our workout (it was probably arms, and I was probably pissed), and I spontaneously decided I wanted to run a mile.

You see, back in high school I could run a mile close to 6 minutes routinely (I weighed between 185-195 and played linebacker). I wanted to go upstairs to the indoor track and run a mile in 6 minutes. I don’t know why, but I just wanted to know if I “still had it” I guess. This turned out to be one of the worst experiences ever, and I want you to learn why.

The recreation facilities indoor track was short; it would take 9 laps to complete a mile. It was 15 minutes until the top of the hour, and I had to train someone…so I needed to be quick. I figured that was plenty of time; a few minutes of loosening up, run the mile, change clothes, and get started. Yeah, not so much.

I loosed up briefly (I like dynamic stretching, still do), readied my wrist watch, and stepped onto the track. I beeped my watch and got started at a pretty good click. I’ve got this pretty good pace, and I completed lap one, no big deal. Now, stop and imagine this. There’s this 203 pound guy running on the indoor track. Well, running isn’t the right word, I’m kind of bounding along. And then I have to dodge a person every now and then (there were a few walkers and joggers, what have you). Those pedestrians see me repeatedly, and I’m making more of a fuss each time.

You see, the first two laps weren’t that big of a deal, but all kinds of shit was going on in my body. Lactic acid started filling in my legs. The phospho creatine system no longer could supply ATP at my work load, and the glycolitic system was also unable to do much since I really hadn’t trained it all that much — especially at this workload. It turns out that riding a bike to class isn’t really an adaptive stress.

I don’t remember what happened on the middle laps, but I do remember lap 8 and 9 (this is Brent’s favorite part of the story). At this point, I’m convinced I’m going to die. I felt as if I was breathing through a snorkel and mask. My legs didn’t want to move. But I pushed ahead as hard as I could. By god I wanted to get that 6 minute mile. My bounding turns into more of a blundering as I’m struggling to keep my velocity. My breathing turns into gigantic rhinoceros breaths; I sounded like a cow giving a horned mating call to the African plains. Every time I breathed out it was a mixture of forced expiration and a sharp moan. As I neared the end it became gorilla-like, frantic. I pounded each step and pushed forward as hard as I could. Remember, there are people on the track, so they’re seeing this dude finishing a mile like he’s sprinting the last leg of the Badwater Marathon. I probably looked like an asshole.

I blew by the finish line and beeped my watch. I didn’t fall down on the ground (at this point in my life, it had never occurred to me to fall on the ground after doing something difficult; athletes usually stay on their feet because the game isn’t over), and waved my watch in front of my face. It read “5:31”. Elation. I did it. I continued to hyperventilate forever, but I walked over and told some of my friends who worked at the facility my time. I continuously said, “I’m not doing that ever again. Ever.” I wish I could say this was the end of the story, but the worst part hasn’t even happened yet.

I don’t know if any of you have done something intense when you aren’t adapted to it at all, but your body is confused. It experiences this work load, this stress that it isn’t accustomed to, and there are repercussions for this stupidity. My stomach started bubbling. I sneezed. I was still sweating profusely, still breathing hard, but my system seemed to be shutting down. My eyes became swollen, and my stomach bubbled. Again.

“Oh my god, I’m not gonna make it to the toilet,” is a censored version of what I thought to myself. I staggered to the bathroom, a journey that was more difficult than lap number 9. I sneezed. Again and again. As I walked into the bathroom I sneezed uncontrollably. Snot poured out of my nose and probably flew everywhere. The constant sneezing seemed to be shaking up the apparent chemical reaction in my stomach. I’m not going to explain in detail what happened, but it was very similar to THIS, yet way worse because I was constantly sneezing. I lost count at 47 sneezes.

I sat on the toilet for at least 15 minutes. After I finally stopped sneezing (after what seemed like half an hour), I sat there, sweating, exhausted, and nauseated. What happened next is the worst part about all of this; my sinuses turned into concrete. Everything in my head cemented itself into place and I could only breathe out of my throat. My eyes felt like they were being pushed forward, like when you shoot ping pong balls out of those air guns. I washed myself, dressed myself, and went downstairs to my personal training client 18 minutes after the top of the hour. I could talk, but I was so congested that I sounded like Meg Ryan if she were to get beaten with a golf club and then waterboarded.

So what in the hell is the moral of the story? When you’re doing something new, or something you haven’t done in a long time (i.e. you are unadapted to it), ease into the activity over time. If you have been lifting and want to be able to run a mile without feeling like crap, then do a light walk/run fartlek workout. If you’re wanting to do hill sprints on sand and haven’t even ran yet, then get adapted to running before sprinting. In my example above, I experienced systemic responses because I wasn’t systemically ready for it (by the way, you have to be strong enough to push yourself hard enough to get systemically fucked up, if you’re weak then it isn’t possible). The two running examples in this paragraph are more relevant to the localized structural stress in your joints and legs. You don’t want to have sore knees from jogging a mile when you haven’t ran in a year and half, and you certainly don’t want to pull a muscle trying to sprint since it will limit all of your other training too.

Don’t be stupid or stubborn; ease yourself into new activity. If you don’t, you can have a miserable experience like I did one night, or you’ll cause an injury that will last longer than sitting on the toilet. In either case, bad programming is to fault. You’ve been warned.
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