WRETCHED EXCESS

Nobody gets out of here alive. Our only positive options are to take steps to lengthen our stay and make our visit as lively and fulfilling as humanly possible. The best method of doing both is to do what comes naturally: Be physically active and burst with curiosity.

Unfortunately, in the half century we are about to kiss off, an unnatural shift in perspective has occurred. Most people have wrapped themselves in the mantle—or rather, the soft fuzzy blanket—of physically passive “victimology.” Nothing is anybody’s fault anymore: My life’s a mess, my body’s a mess, my health’s a mess; look at what life has done to me—and it ain’t my fault. Really.

Americans are becoming increasingly fat, as though doing so were an inescapable, natural process. Africans and Europeans rip their nations apart in bloodbaths spurred by centuriesold disagreements, the origins of which no living person recalls. Growing numbers of people worldwide wait anxiously for benign space aliens in UFOs to drop in and solve the world’s problems… and perhaps spirit them off to a better place. A sense of dread and powerlessness spreads, as the hyperdrive of modern communication

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overwhelms us with instant tragedy. Events seem intimate and local because they haven’t been filtered by days and weeks before the news reaches us, which gives us time to place the events in their proper perspective.

Individuals who are simultaneously intellectually and physically active are viewed as strange, weird, bizarre, elite, egocentric, hedonistic, and hurtful to passive individuals. A century ago, the active individual would have been viewed as, well, “normal.” Most people led physically active daily lives—they had to to survive. The passive, inactive individual was either physically incapacitated, lazy, or rich enough to hire someone else to do his or her basic daily chores.

These days, the physically active have no perspective on what is going on with average, sitting-around folk because like-minded (and like-bodied) people gravitate to people like them. Hence, runners gravitate to other runners, bingo players gravitate to other bingo players, and NFL football game watchers gravitate to other NFL football game watchers.

And, of course, like-minded people rationalize their activities—or lack of activities. Inactive, overweight people, for example, have concocted the rationalization that it

is physically and mentally dangerous to run marathons. Look at what happened to Jim Fixx, they say. You’ ve heard about exercise addiction, haven’t you?

While these naysayers perch unnaturally atop their duffs, their blood pressure climbs, their arteries set like concrete, their muscles atrophy, their blood pools, diabetes cuts off active participation with the body’s extremities, cigarette smoke tars up lung tissue, highly processed foods roil, ferment, and turn to brick in the small intestines, and oxygen to the brain is compromised—if it gets there at all.

On the opposite side of the track, distance runners rationalize not that less is more, but that more is more, and that the more mileage their bodies can tolerate, the better off they and their bodies will be.

Government scientists have wrestled for years under thousands of studies touting how fitness generates health; and then, for political reasons, the findings are sugar-coated so they won’t inflict a fatal shock to the terminally inactive and lay guilt on them about how much more they should be doing to be healthy.

Moderate exercise—20 minutes, three times a week—is all it takes to be fitand healthy, Americans are told. Of course, that’s nonsense, and the scientists involved in the massive compilation of studies know it. The Iowa farmer who lived to be 82 years old 75 years ago and who had four percent body fat didn’t live into his ninth decade by being physically active for 20 minutes a day, three days aweek. He andhis family would have starved before the first week was up.

Some recent studies cite conclusions that serious distance runners knew decades ago—that the more mileage you put in each week, the healthier your heart becomes; strenuous workouts sandwiched between easier workouts for recovery maximize the body onevery possible physical level, on several psychological levels, and on a few spiritual levels.

Which raises the question: Is there such a thing as excess when it comes to long-distance running? Of course. Everything in life has the potential for excess, from religion to computer games, from stretching to stamp collecting. Running long distances on asphalt and concrete is nearly as unnatural as total physical inactivity. Too much running on hard surfaces will exact a physical price on certain biomechanical systems below the waist.

Is running a marathon excessive? Most certainly, which is why the human body is capable of running a quality marathon only once or twice a year. Marathons should be chosen carefully and then portioned over a career.

Many years ago, a theory circulated that there was a biological/anthropological reason to explain why marathoners hit the wall after 18 or 20 miles. The theory went that in ancient times, when man was a huntergatherer, hunting parties ranged roughly 8 to 10 miles from the cave because that distance left enough time

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