Running as a component in an eternal youth complex (Read 172 times)

(spoiler alert: contains heavy stuff / philosophy / psychology)

I'm 25 years old, a former runner in my teens and just now getting back into it. Strangely though, it is not for any competitive reason whatsoever.

I stopped when I entered college. I was proud of my running but very little else in my life. I was exactly what you would expect from a kid who took pride in long distance running to be his everything, I was never a speed demon but took pride in doing shit like running 8-13 miles on occasion without thinking twice about it. But I was also really skinny, kinda on the verge of ED which is common with young kids running track, even guys, very nerdy, and completely out of my element with the gals in college, who I saw were swooning over the big tall dudes with swollen arms who spent most of their time drinking beer and calling little guys "buddy."

Foolishly, i stopped running, and starting smoking weed, figuring that I was essentially resisting the slow decline into manhood and that was the very thing that was gonna get me the chicks. The weed helped smooth over the loss of everything that I thought made me me. Even starting lifting, put on some mass, and worked a fuckton of minimum wage manual labor jobs which ended up beefing up my upper bod, giving me hairy arms , back pain, the works. Lift with your knees, not your back, children.

And now i'm a 25 year old dude with thinning hair, stubble, the very beginnings of a cute lil' gut and lost most of the muscle in my legs, and can't help but feel I was shammed and scammed by societal convention. Jesus, running itself is good for your cardiovascular system and thus a natural Viagra. I want that lean and tight and toned and skinny look back even though I know that I can't fight time, at the very least you can make your body FEEL young...ish. And at some point in my hazy crazy stoner days I realized that I was being stupid (I have a theory that weed is an eternal youth thing, even if it's only in your mind, which is why it can simulate or even cause actual schizophrenia and probably the reason I went a little crazy and now I'm on Abilify 10mg. But running is good for mental health too yo!)

I'm 5'6"ish and low 120s but I'm the definition of what they mean when they say being skinny doesn't mean you're in shape. Luckily, i wasn't on the cigs too long, switched to the ecig, and mostly smoked water bong, like any pothead with half a brain. As i've recently discovered, running while high is an experience of its own kind too.

Is the decay reversible, or at least reducible and then sustainable? Seems a lot of folks here got sick of their desk job and growing waistline too, and then laced er up once more...

This may sound kinda left field, but I can actually identify. Here's my advice from personal experience. Since you don't have a weight problem. Do tons and tons of abs. works the shit out of your abs until you have a 12 pack. Then NEVER EVER EVER let it go. You can be as buff as you want, but you will look like a fat ass if you have a gut. You can be skinny as a twig, but a gut will show off your out-of-shapness. You might as well wear a dirty t-shirt, get knuckle tattoos, and have long greasy hair and a unkept goatee to go with it.

My experience. I was a little kid when my 350 pound uncle dropped dead of a heart attack. My dad said it was because he was so fat. That scared the shit out of me. I was like 7 years old, and skinny as hell, and every day I looked in the mirror to see if my gut was sticking out, because I knew that of it did, I would fall over dead from a heart attack. Sounds silly I know, but dead serious to a little kid. I learned how to do sit-ups. I did millions. It became a habit. By the time I was old enough to know how stupid my childhood phobia was, I had a killer 12 pack, and I liked it. I kept the habit. I'll be 60 next year. I still have my 12 pack. I've done a lot of stuff in my life, but my biggest lesson in health and fitness is, that if you maintain bad ass abs, everything else falls into place. Make it your centerpiece, and frame it anyway you want.

This may sound kinda left field, but I can actually identify. Here's my advice from personal experience. Since you don't have a weight problem. Do tons and tons of abs. works the shit out of your abs until you have a 12 pack. Then NEVER EVER EVER let it go. You can be as buff as you want, but you will look like a fat ass if you have a gut. You can be skinny as a twig, but a gut will show off your out-of-shapness. You might as well wear a dirty t-shirt, get knuckle tattoos, and have long greasy hair and a unkept goatee to go with it.

 

My experience. I was a little kid when my 350 pound uncle dropped dead of a heart attack. My dad said it was because he was so fat. That scared the shit out of me. I was like 7 years old, and skinny as hell, and every day I looked in the mirror to see if my gut was sticking out, because I knew that of it did, I would fall over dead from a heart attack. Sounds silly I know, but dead serious to a little kid. I learned how to do sit-ups. I did millions. It became a habit. By the time I was old enough to know how stupid my childhood phobia was, I had a killer 12 pack, and I liked it. I kept the habit. I'll be 60 next year. I still have my 12 pack. I've done a lot of stuff in my life, but my biggest lesson in health and fitness is, that if you maintain bad ass abs, everything else falls into place. Make it your centerpiece, and frame it anyway you want.

Funny you mention, I've started to feel like my core is the problem. I can feel my abs but I could tell it's coming on when i started running again and started feeling it just start to slosh around. So good idea. Beer is fucking AWFUL for that shit. Luckily i like weed way more than beer

Women don’t care about looks like men do.

concentrate on making money.

Ha!

Concentrate on being a wonderful person.

runnerdave, you are almost the optimum height/weight to be a great 10k-marathon runner. You already ahead of the game, being the size of a McChesney brother (U of Oregon, South Eugene HS). There's not much you can do about that, so use it to your advantage. Your dabbling with the Dark Arts was a pitiable short amount of time. There are others who have decades of bad living who decide to get addicted to physical fitness and do great. There's actually quite a number of great Ultramarathoners who never did anything athletic in their lives, and spent their teens, twenties, and even 30's drinking, smoking, shooting up, and waking up in their own piss. Then they started running. One dude had just 2 years of running under his belt and was winning  some 100 milers.

 

Thinning hair? Who cares. Shaved heads are cool. Running to get "a look" almost never works. It just shapes you to your most efficient running form. Form follows function. Join a running club, go on group runs at your LRS. You'll meet supportive people. And here's the kicker: the majority of half marathoners are girls; uh, women. Your odds are pretty good of meeting a like minded single woman. If you're into that sort of thing.

 

And you're freakin' 25! Your brain isn't even fully developed yet (according to Science)! You can turn things around in one calendar year or less, unlike us oldsters who have to plot, plan, and execute a training regimine for YEARS to get in shape.

Thanks man, yeah that makes me feel a bit more reassured. I started again back in april, first it was a couple miles around the block and now I can nearly crack 8 again. From past experience listening to your body is so key , training and following patterns but also prioritizing a sustainable regimen over a suicidal one lol. And then you improve over time. It's funny, I did a lot of running way back and over the years as I've fell off the wagon and then gotten back on again and again, even if brief, it's like your body at first resists running and then it starts to remember that you used to be a runner and shit falls back into place.

Yeah I'm glad I wasn't a junkie or alcoholic who didn't start running till 40. I think that ultra runner guy Dean karnazes was a former runner who stopped for like 10 years or so , then one day got disgusted by being a drinker and started running again and made it his thing .

And yeah . Runner young ladies  win-win😁

I just like the way running makes me feel. And it's good for you. Better than drinking beer and playing Fortnite anyway.  Pretty much it

It's all downhill after 22yo...

Good Luck.

dyxlesia is a thing horrible