flapping pockets

Date	Place of exercise	Duration (minutes)	Classic sprint	Dam Sprint	Pullups	Start time
12 Sept	Tirana	45	50.55	1:36.77	5,9,7,5	07:02

                I wrote the other day how the mind works in both ways. What I meant was that the mind can make you think that you are running slowly when you are running fast, and vice versa. Today, I felt like I was zipping along. We’ll see how that worked out.

                What’s more, just before I started the classic sprint, I ran into a guy who I have been meeting in the park for six or seven years. He is always walking his dog, and until today, he had his two daughters in a tandem stroller. Now, the girls are four-years-old and they aren’t as much of a captive audience that can be rocked to sleep by the gentle bumping of the stroller across the uneven ground. Anyway, after we chatted for a bit, I turned to finish my run. The beginning of my sprint only about 10 meters away. I put my ear buds back in my ears and grabbed my phone out of my pocket. I also took the keys out of my pocket and put one finger of my left hand through one of the rings. I grasped the phone in my left hand so I would be able to push the start button, and the finish button on my watch without a problem.

                You might wonder why I need to have my phone and my keys in my hand. Well, the other day, they were in my pockets. As I sprinted, the movement of my legs and the weight in my pockets, made the pockets slide below the fabric of the shorts. This made the keys and the phone weirdly start flapping outside of my shorts. This little thing didn’t bother me, but the fact that I was thinking about it must have detracted from my speed. I probably finished several tenths of a second slower that I would have if the flapping was not transpiring. 

                So anyway, I took off today with my left had grasping the phone, and my finger threading through a ring of the keys. My friend, we’ll call him Bob, might have seen me. He might even have been walking the same way as I was. He might have wondered what I was doing trying to run so fast. Was I trying to impress him? Was I trying to be a macho man and show off to my fellow human? He might not have known that I do this sprint nearly every day. At any rate, I felt like I was moving like a whirlwind on the way to a tornado party. I imagined Bob seeing me breezing around the potholes, touching the concrete daintily as I powered around the corner and up the hill. As I metered (When you are going slowly, you say that you inched. If you are going quickly, why not ‘metered’?) toward my goal, I didn’t feel pain and exhaustion, I felt exhilaration and speed.

                The mind played tricks again. More than half a second slower than 50 seconds!