The human joys of running really fast

(621 words)

I’m on record as saying I have the same interest in learning speed reading as I do speed sex. Both activities are something to savor.

The declaration is contrary to my typical outlook. See, I yearn to go really fast. Like cheetah fast.

Not in a car or a plane, circumstances so grindingly routine they’re practically pedestrian.

I’m talking about the human exhilaration that comes from running fast, just propelling your body as fast as it can go with joyful abandon.

When was the last time you just bolted? It feels wonderful.

It’s why I felt envious early this week when I saw speedy Cincinnati Red Billy Hamilton raced from home plate to third base in just 10.58 seconds, about 27 feet a second.

I tried to think how long it would take me to run 270 feet and I figured I could do it in about 10 also.

That’s 10 hours.

First I’d be winded from running 90 feet from home to first so I’d stop to catch my breath and chat with the first baseman about what it’s like to play professional ball and if he worries more about his post-baseball career or catching an STD from the baseball Annies. It would be a long talk. I’d then repeat the whole thing in getting to second, but by then I’d need lunch and a nap.

Sensing I was starting to embarrass myself, I’d give it all I had on my way to third and likely pull a groin muscle and require medical assistance, some liquor and another long nap.

So 10 hours, or about what non-baseball fans think attending a regular MLB game feels like.

Many runners make running look agonizing. Their faces are masks of painful endurance.

I know how to solve this common problem: Never run more than 30 feet at a time.

I know this from ’10 when I enjoyed my greatest racing achievement. I outran 25 Point Park University students who were half my age.

It helped that I was their professor, the surprise race starter and apparently the only one who gave a shit at all about winning.

My class had been invited to enjoy a gala reception with none other than John Grisham. I informed them about the schedule change and said, “First one to the elevator drinks free!”

And just like that I was off. Took me about 5 seconds to run 30 feet. I remember feeling like my hair was going to fly off my head. 

It felt great!

One by one, in varying degrees of evident indifference, my students shuffled down the hall. I do remember impressing one student who said I was a real cheetah.

Or maybe she said “cheater.”

No matter. I was so excited by my victory, I’d forgotten to push the elevator button and we all stood there like morons for almost two minutes before anyone noticed.

The greatest use of speed, to me, is the common goodbye. Few have mastered it.

Most people let the goodbye drag on and on and on. It may seem polite, but it’s truly tedious. It should be just goodbye and go.

It’s why I’ve always admired Waylon Jennings who used to alert everyone he could depart without notice or warning.

“If you see me getting smaller, it means I’m leaving,” he’d say.

And just like that, he’d be gone. I’d say he’d vanish like a puff of smoke, but he was legendary friends with Willie Nelson so it was likely he was on his way to puff smoke.

Maybe it’s a tactic I can start employing right here on the blog.

Write fast and just get the hell out.

If you see me getting smaller, I’m leaving …

Related …

A short distance runner

Justice & John Grisham

Ghosts & ghostings in haunted Virginia

Willie Nelson for “high” court

Hoping for Game 7s and extra, extra innings

Today I tried to break Usain Bolt’s record

A convivial man stricken with "beer sickness"

I had to explain what a hangover was to Josie on Saturday and I felt marginally proud that I’ve been able to conceal them from her for eight years.

During those eight years I’ve had hundreds of punishing bouts with that self-inflicted misery. I used to think that one day the hangover would be nothing but a nasty memory for me, that I’d mature or stagnate to a point where I didn’t feel like staying out too late, laughing too loud or drinking too much.

It’s hasn’t happened yet and it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to.

I’m among the last of the relentless and unapologetically convivial people on the planet. Rare is the day or night that I don’t want to spend at least a portion of my time sipping beers or bourbons and yapping about the events of the day with jolly friends or alert strangers.

“The only reason I write stories is because nobody will pay me to lean against a bar and mumble them.” That’s what the great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko wrote and it’s something I’ve always embraced.

Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and many of our greatest American writers were robust drinkers, too. Of course, the only thing I have in common with those historically accomplished giants is a fondness for cigars and spirits, but to the I.R.S. we’re all lumped in together as “writers” so the association, however diminishing it is to them, must stand.

Writing is a lonely business. You’re all by yourself. There’s no team. No cubicle chatter. No chummy camaraderie.

But to be a writer you need access to lively people and stories. And you get that at most any neighborhood tavern. The one I go to -- the one that’s strategically located directly below my office -- is a stew of mill workers, cops, tradesmen, lawyers, accountants, heroic veterans, Republicans, Democrats and a motley mix of deadbeats, racists and incoherent drunks who’ll test the skills of even the most polished debater.

So I like to go there for what you could call for professional reasons. Bar time provides a cerebral sort of mingling I couldn’t get if I worked above, say, a coffee shop or a place that sells shoes. Of course, there is the collateral risk that once in a while I wind up drunk, all in the line of duty.

That’s what happened Friday night on a day that started with an ambition-squashing afternoon of televised October baseball. It’s very difficult for any normally convivial person to stay up in his or her office when many of his or her buddies are downstairs quaffing beer and watching playoff baseball.

And it’s way too difficult for someone like me.

So, there I was at 4 p.m. drinking my first beer and philosophically closing the books on another work week of subpar productivity.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Val and I had planned to meet friends -- convivial folks all -- at a local restaurant. I followed the afternoon beers with cocktail bourbon, followed that with cabernet and followed that with still more Tennessee whiskey.

Had I found room for a splash or two of Ouzo or some other cordial, I’d have hit the liquid equivalent of all four major food groups.

And if you’ve ever been a convivial person, you know what happened Saturday morning. It was a hangover or as Val explained to Josie, “Daddy has the beer sickness.”

Josie jumped back as if she thought “beer sickness” could jump from me to her. So I told her all about the convivial person’s curse known as the hangover.

“Is it catchy?” she asked.

I told her no, but I’m really not so sure. I know there are many days when I wake up with beer sickness that many of my convivial buddies wake up suffering from the same symptoms. Who knows? Maybe it is contagious.

“Will you ever get another one?” she asked.

I ran through in my head the remaining schedule for the baseball playoffs. “Probably next Thursday morning,” I said.

I am, after all, a convivial person, one who is conscientious about his professional conduct.