The Jog. Have you ever wondered what that jogger… | by Kevin McNamee

Have you ever wondered what that jogger was actually thinking about as they run past you. Here’s a summary of one of my runs from a few years ago.

“Bye Kathleen, I’m going out for a run. Back in half an hour”. “Good for you”, she replies and I step out onto the deck at the back of our house. I’m wearing Merrell runners, white ankle socks worn fashionable low, shorts (not so fashionable), a body fitting running shirt that the kids gave me, sunglasses and a baseball cap with the San Diego Zoo logo. I look pretty cool, exactly the way my grown up kids would want their aging dad to look like as he takes to the cross country running trails that back onto our two story suburban house. The kids have moved away years ago, to go to college, explore the world, find a job, get married, settle down, have kids and all those other life defining events. But I love it here. Big house, great back yard, running and biking in the summer and fall, skiing in the winter. Couldn’t ask for more.

I plug in my earbuds and select the Runkeeper app on my iPhone. It will track my run today. The last time I used it I was out on my bike, so I select running as the activity and press start. “Activity Started” says the computerized female voice that will keep me updated on my progress. I then activate the music app on my phone and select the “A-list” play list. This is a collection of songs that I downloaded for free from Napster in the 90s. It’s mostly song from the late sixties and early seventies, the ones that defined my youth. I’ve got service from Spotify that gives me access to just about every song imaginable, but I still fall back on my A-list when I’m running. It’s just one of those things… tradition. I tell the phone to “shuffle” the songs.

“Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf starts the run. It begins with an urgent 120 beats per minute guitar riff that really get the blood going and then the bass kicks in and the lyrics start… “get your motor running… head out on the highway… looking for adventure…”. It’s the perfect song to start a run and I’m amazed at how fortunate the “shuffle” option was to pick it out. However, given the era and genre of the material in the play list, probably most of them would have been a pretty good choice. I head out down the pathway with it pulsing in my head.

The first part of the run is down a shady forest path. A bird is standing in the path about 20 feet away. As I approach, it takes to the air and flies about 20 feet further down the path. As I approach it again, it repeats the performance, flying an additional 20 feet further. This continues for the next 50 yards. It waits until I get close and then flies further down the path. It’s like it’s leading me on. In fact, it is. The bird’s nest is in the forest off to the side of the path and it is leading me away from it. The entire performance is to lead me away from the nest. The bird doesn’t realize that with Born to Be Wild pulsing in my head and wearing my cool jogging outfit, I really don’t care where its nest is and its performance is somewhat lost on me. I would continue to follow the path regardless of the bird’s antics.

I feel a slight twinge in my right knee. This is strange because it’s my left knee that’s fucked up, a torn ACL from a soccer injury back in the eighties. I never got it fixed. I tried playing soccer with a knee brace and managed to play a few more seasons, but eventually the ALC was completely gone and I gave up soccer. Strangely the ALC injury doesn’t affect my ability to run, its fine as long as I don’t plant my foot and pivot on the knee at the same time. Sometime it hurts a bit with excessive use, particularly after a long run. So here I am with the other knee acting up. Go figure. I run through it and it goes away after a few minutes. I think that perhaps I should have got the knee surgery done back in the eighties. We had a cat once, that had an ACL problem. We got its knee fixed, at great expense.

The temperature is cool today. This is good, because when it’s hot, I sweat and then start to overheat. So far, no sweat. Looks like it is a good day for a run. The path is a bit muddy, after some rain yesterday, so I’ll have to be careful about slipping.

I reach the end of the forest path and come out onto the road. To the left is the Hornet’s Nest, which is a soccer facility with 10 pitches, a dome, a club house and a large parking lot. It is home to the Gloucester Hornets, the local soccer team. To the right is a quarry, very picturesque. I head down the road and cut left into the Hornet’s Nest parking lot. I cross the parking lot onto the gravel path that runs past the soccer pitches.

There’s a girl’s soccer team practicing on one of the pitches beside the running path. I pick up the pace slightly and tighten up my form. I have no idea why I did this, other than to look good incase one the of the teenaged girls happens to notice the ancient jogger running past. “He may be old, but he’s got style”, they will think.

It’s time for full disclosure here. I run, bike and cross country ski, but I’m slow. When I was young, I was never the fastest, but I was quick enough and had the stamina to be competitive in most sports. Since I turned 65, I’ve just been slow. I’m a slow skier, a slow biker and and even slower runner. However, occasionally something will inspire me to pick up the pace a bit. It doesn’t take much. It could be a pretty girl walking past, another runner on the trail, a family having a picnic at the side of the trail, an old lady out walking her dog or a teen soccer team practicing. As soon as someone is watching, I suck in the gut and pick up the pace.

The Steppenwolf song ends and Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz starts to play. I saw a documentary on her a few weeks ago. This was the last song she recorded. The next morning she was found dead in her motel room, the victim of a drug overdose. It must have been accidental because she sounded so happy, if somewhat spaced out, on the recording. “I’d like to do a song of great social and political import”, she started out and then ended with “That’s it … hee hee hee…”. There’s a definite banter between her and the recording technicians. It is strange to be listening to this banter, knowing that the next day she would be dead. As the song ends, I want to tell the phone to play Leonard Cohen’s Chelsea Hotel, but they have not yet invented mind control for the music app, so it transitions into Jimi Hendrix and All Along the Watch Tower, which is another great running song. I always liked the Chelsea Hotel, Cohen’s tribute to Joplin, but I wondered about the morality of singing about the details of your romantic conquests in public.

I pass the soccer fields and head down the path to Green’s Creek and the toboggan hill. There’s a steep down hill here, a bridge over a small creek and then back uphill. I wonder why I do this. Some children are out for a bike trip with their parents. They have stopped to explore the creek. I pick up the pace, tighten my form and give them a knowing wave as I jog past.

Why do I do this? It’s to keep fit. I heard somewhere, I don’t remember where, that the heart has only so many beats. So by running, I’m actually shortening my life. I do the calculation. When I run, my heart beat is probably about 120, at rest it’s probably about 70. In a day there are 1440 minutes, that’s about 100,000 beats per day, or 700,000 beats per week. I run once a week on average for about 30 minutes. So in that time I add 50 beats per minute for 30 minute or 1500 beats. If I do only have a limited number of heartbeats I’ve shortened by life by about 0.2% and this assumes I run once per week for my entire life. If I factor in the fact that weekly running is a fairly recent activity, I can safely assume that I’ve probably squandered a couple of weeks of like expectancy due to running, which is small stuff compared to all the smoking and drinking I’ve done.

I head off the main path into the woods. Ouch! I hit my head on an overhanging branch. I sometimes run with my head down, watching the progress of my feet down the trail. This is not a bad idea in the woods, because the trails there have roots and branches that have to be avoided, but it does mean that I miss the occasional overhanging branch. I should look where I’m going. Hendrix transitions to The Police and Message in a Bottle.

I play in a band. I play bass. I have a Fender Telecaster Bass, which is practically the same guitar as Sting’s Fender Precision. Sting is three years older than I am. So, we’re practically sole mates. I can easily play the bass part for Message in a Bottle and fancy I could sing it too. All I have to do is get Steve, our guitarist, to learn the guitar part and we’re all set. I bet he could do it. There are all sorts of interesting arpeggios, but he could do it. As I run, I focus on the guitar part and imagine Steve playing it.

On my iPhone, I have a whole play list of our band’s songs. I never listen to them when I run. That would be too self-indulgent. Running requires different music, the A-list.

The trail in the woods is very muddy and I have to dodge mud, puddles and roots as I run. This is good exercise for the legs and knees. It also keeps the mind active, looking for obstacles and planning the next steps. Ouch! Another branch.

I exit the woods and get back on the main trail and the phone summarize the first 10 minutes of the run in that computerized female voice. “Elapsed time 10 minutes, Total distance 1.34 km, Average pace 7.46 minutes per kilometer, Average speed 8.04 km/hr”. As I said, I’m not very fast, but I am consistent. When I follow my standard route, this message is issued at the same spot in the run with practically the same numbers.

Further down the path I see a middle-age man dressed in running gear walking towards me. As I approach, he looks at his watch and then break into a jog. I know the routine. He’s tired and stopped for a break, but the sight of another runner makes him feel guilty. Someone has caught him slacking off. He looks at his watch to suggest, “I only slowed to check my pace. It doesn’t count as stopping the run.” and then resumes his run. This is what I’m thinking. I nod knowingly as we pass. Further along three teen boys jog towards me. I suck in my gut, pick up the pace a little and wave as we pass. They are probably going at twice my speed and with a lot less effort.

The path empties into the parking lot at the toboggan hill. In the summer people use the parking lot for access to nearby biking trails. People also like to train by running up and down the hill, so it’s often quite crowded. Now I have a choice to make. I can run all the way to the bottom of the hill and then climb its steep slope to the top, demonstrating my fitness and stamina to all present. I can take a side path that bypassed the hill entirely, but there’s no glory in that. Usually I choose the third options which takes a shorter less steep route over the top of the hill. This is a lot easier than doing the entire hill and it maximizes the number of people I’ll encounter, who can admire the old guy out running. As I crest the hill today, I’m sure the gaggle of girls in their Lululemon tank-tops and running shorts are looking on thinking “not bad for an old guy”. Probably not. As I pass them Mike Jagger ironically launches into Satisfaction.

Now I’m on the return leg of the run. I have heard that visualizing an athletic performance can often help in making sure its execution is a success. So, I start to visualize how the jog will end. Will I feel strong and add the extra loop turning it into a 5km run, will I stop at the bridge over the creek to avoid the steep uphill at the end, will I continue on to the soccer field house and make it the standard 3km run, or will I just quit now and have a nice leisurely walk back home. I see a couple of middle age ladies coming towards me walking their dogs and talking intently. They are focused on their conversation and probably don’t even notice the jogger, but in my mind, I would lose face to give up in front of witnesses, so there’s no way I can quit now. As I jog past, there’s not even a glimmer of acknowledgment from them. Perhaps stopping at the bridge or field house are better options.

I’m back on the trail through the woods now. Emerson, Lake and Palmer start playing Lucky Man. For the first time in ages, I actually listen to the lyrics and wonder why I even like this song. It’s about a wealthy, womanizing guy who likes white horses and has a feather bed. He goes off to battle hoping to gain popularity and glory with the masses, but is killed instead. Then the Moog Synthesizer clicks in and I remember why I like the song. The running app on the phone chimes in with the 20 minute synopsis of the run.

I’m out of the woods now and back on the main trail. Lucky Man ended with powerful blasts from the Moog and has been replaced with I’m Going Home by Ten Years After. They played it a Woodstock. It’s a driving rock/blues piece that features Alvin Lee’s lightning fast guitar leads. The first band I was ever in played it at a rock concert we organized in Chateauguay in the summer of 1970, inspired of course by Woodstock itself. Our guitarist, Rick Makinen, fancied himself and the next Alvin Lee. I played bass and sang. In later years I adapted it with my brothers as a more traditional blues medley and it became a regular on our set list. I’ve even played it with my most recent band, Another Level.

I’m at the bridge over the creek now. There’s a steep decent to the bridge followed by an even steeper ascent to the soccer fields. I usually try to at least make it to the soccer field before stopping. Today I’m feeling strong and Alvin Lee is driving me on, so I focus on the field house as my destination. It’s only 500M further.

I reach the field house beside the Hornet’s Nest parking lot. This is a natural place to stop and observers will have no opportunity to think I’m giving up. To emphasize that I am officially done to the potential observers (there are none), I take out my phone and press stop on the running app. It gives me a summary of the “workout”. I’ve run 3.08km in 23 minutes. It also includes that fact that just burned 238 calories and informs me that this is my 59th fastest time. My fastest time was when the GPS went haywire and added an additional 5km to my run. It got confused. It seemed to think I did 8km in 23 minutes that day, which is the same pace as an elite marathoner. Today was just a normal run. It’s a sunny day so I take off my tee-shirt to cool down and perhaps get a little sun and start walking back home. This is my cool down routine.

A few years back, I would run all the way back to the house, but there’s an uphill bit that I can avoid due to the cool down routine. Sometimes I even throw in a couple of stretches, in case there’s someone watching. This demonstrates that I’ve just completed vigorous exercise, rather than being just an old sweaty guy out for an afternoon stroll.