Over February vacation, I found the meaning of life. It began with pilates.
I fucking love pilates. There's no other way to express it. I love it. The way people love their husbands and babies? That's how I feel about pilates. Two weeks ago, a skeezy guy hit on me at a bar and I told him I was engaged to a pilates reformer machine. He stared at me for 30 seconds, then laughed hysterically, then told me he wished all rejections were that creative. I LOVE PILATES.
The other day, I was running 11 miles, and well.. Okay, I should clarify. I left my house with the intention of running 7 miles. I hadn't run in almost 2 months, because I was still in the honeymoon phase of my relationship with pilates... you know the one, where you forget all your other friends and only hang out with your new love. I left my house, ran to Comm, turned onto the carriage lane and TOOK OFF. I mean, almost full 5k race pace. I ran. Cars drove across Harvard. I sprinted through traffic. People yelled FUCK YOU out car windows and honked. I waited to slow down into my usual distance pace but it didn't happen.
By the time I hit Packard's Corner, I realized that I was running way more than 7 miles, so I ran into the gym and chugged a liter of water. I kept running, stomach sloshing, heart racing, stupid-looking "I just got laid" grin across my face (sidenote: I had NOT just gotten laid).
You know how after a heavy night of drinking at a couple of different bars, someone says something and you think, "Wait, what? We went where? I just remember we ended up at Grendel's Den." That's how this next part goes. I know I ran over the BU Bridge and up Memorial, but it's blurry. I remember bits and pieces in flashes. Girl wearing same spandex as me / overweight Tom Brady lookalike smoking weed under bridge / MIT / little arcs of light from street lamps on the river. I kept waiting to slow down, but it didn't happen, and then I was hauling ass across the Longfellow into Beacon Hill and HOLY SHIT I FELT AWESOME. At around four miles, I looked down at my watch and realized I was running 7:45 pace. Conor, Hil, and the few other people who know my running history will understand why I was terrified. I was always a distance runner, but I was never that great. I ran the first 4 of 11 miles at almost my high school 5k race pace. I STILL HAD 7 MILES TO GO.
I had forgotten what runner's high felt like. Nothing compares. Granted, I've never done any hard drugs, but I once had 5 different forms of weed and a shitload of absinthe in my system at once and became completely convinced that I could freeze time, still nothing compares to the feeling of runner's high. It was like fucking flying. It was like sex, on those occasions when you can just keep going and going and going and then take a 5 minute break to eat ice cream and then keep going again. The coolest part of runner's high is that it enables you to defy the laws of physics. When you're really high, and I mean floating over pavement so fast and in the zone you can't read street signs, elevation doesn't matter. You run up a hill, down a hill, on flat ground, over little hills, and it all feels the same: like you're flying. It's supernatural.
If you're a runner, you know what comes next. You know that, despite spending 12 hours a week at the gym for the two months prior, my legs were not ready for all that impact at once. You know that I broke golden law of running by disregarding the 10% rule (only increase mileage by 10% each week), and you know that what was coming to me. What goes up must come down, and I crashed.
First the knees turned to jelly. Triceps went next, and suddenly I couldn't propel myself nearly as fast. What felt like flying five minutes prior now felt like doing jumping jacks with lead weights glued to my hands and feet. By the time I got to the Storrow side of the BU bridge, I was incapable of coherent thoughts. Every footfall sent shocks through me. I felt the impact in every bone, every time.
This was not the first time I have run 11 miles out of nowhere, so I was accustomed to this to a certain degree. However, this was the first time I ran 11 miles out of nowhere and ran the first four at 5k race pace. That added a new dimension to the pain.
There is a tiny hill as you approach the Harvard footbridge on the esplanade that kills me every time. It's like the tiny hill right before you hit Kenmore Square in the Boston Marathon. It's so insignificant you wouldn't notice it in 4-inch stilettos, but after running Heartbreak Hill, it feels like someone's smashing your quads with a hammer. This tiny Harvard footbridge lead-up hill was terrifying. If you've experienced it, you're laughing at me, but wincing on the inside, because you know how ridiculous it is yet how right I am. It can't be more than 20 feet long, and the rise is probably 5 feet total. But it ended me. I reached the top, wobbled, and debated asking a stranger to carry me to Cambridge street and call a cab for me.
At this point, something amazing happened. I started this rant talking about pilates, and this is why: in this moment, PILATES SAVED MY INEXISTENT ASS. The only comparison I can think of is when you slide over ice and you feel the antilock brakes kick in, you literally feel them grind, shift, and lock into place. I felt the pilates kick in. My shoulders dropped down and back. My ribs laced together and locked into place with a clank I imagined because by this point, in my mind, I was picturing myself as Bumblebee in Transformers. It was incredible. My legs couldn't lift themselves, but my abs could lift them. My core shifted into gear. It was like before, all my muscles were working independently of each other, and then they were working together. It wasn't runner's high. It was pilates high.
YES. I WENT THERE.
Sidenote: Michelle, I understand if you need to take a break to wipe the tears of pride from your eyes.
The rest of the run was about 9:30 pace. I got home, drank a gallon of water, and proceeded to chug chocolate sauce straight from the bottle. I am in no way ashamed of this.
The moral of the story: I found the meaning of life: Running, pilates, dessert, and sex.
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