I wanna go fast!

When I stepped outside the other day, I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with chilly spring air. It smelled like rain and mist and soggy dead grass. And that’s when I knew, without a doubt, that track season was upon us.

These kinds of days—the ones with still, foggy air and puddle-dotted sidewalks—were always my favorite for track workouts. I found the damp, cool air soothing to my throat, lungs and muscles.

When I set out on my run, I immediately felt a familiar spring in my step. At that point, I was no longer in control of my route. My legs took over, knowing exactly where they wanted to go.

I arrived at the high school track feeling fresh and ready to, in the words of Ricky Bobby, go fast. Without even thinking, I rolled into my pre-workout warm-up routine. It had been months since I’d last done my usual series of kicks, skips and leg-swings, but I was surprised at how easily it all came back.

I felt great. I knew it was going to be a banner day. I almost wished I had a coach or a friend or even a live studio audience to witness what was about to go down. I did a quick survey of the track facility and its immediate surroundings. There were a couple of groundskeepers working about 600 yards away from the stadium. I figured that since I could see them, they could probably see me. I decided that counted as an audience.

After doing a couple of strides, I made my way to the starting line. I was smiling, and I even thought about whistling the chorus melody from “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Then I remembered that I never learned how to whistle, and I made a mental note to search for an instructional video on YouTube later that day.

I still hadn’t gotten a new watch, and I had a feeling the oral counting method would prove ineffective in a track interval scenario. But I didn’t care—I was doing this work out, with or without a working timepiece.

I slowly approached the line, shaking out my arms and legs to rid them of any lingering kinks. I leaned forward into the starting position, and boom! I launched into a full-on sprint, marveling at the quickness of my feet and the power of my stride. The first 200-meter interval was smooth and almost effortless. I actually felt like an 800 runner again—I wondered whether my training hiatus had affected my speed at all. Perhaps I was just some sort of athletic super human.

Then I tried to do another one. This 200, though, was not so smooth, not so effortless. This 200 hurt—bad. From the twinge in my calf to the tightness in my lungs, my body screamed at me, as if to say, “What the crap? I thought we were done with running fast. You are a liar and a scoundrel!”

I was just about to protest about the scoundrel part when I felt a sharp pain slightly above the back of my knee. I slowed to a more manageable pace. Suddenly, my brain was inundated with hypothetical crisis scenarios.

I imagined limping into the high school and asking various teenagers with bewildered looks on their faces for directions to the school nurse’s office. I saw myself hobble into her little examination room, where she gasped and exclaimed, in a thick Minnesota accent, “Omigash! Did you just come from Coach Brown’s P.E. class? I thought you guys were just learning how to juggle beanbags this week.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head, expelling from my mind all images of myself as an injured, pathetic failure. No, I would not give up. I was going to finish this thing.

During my last few intervals, I was glad the guys on the mini tractors were too caught up in their work to notice me. I was also glad I had no way of knowing just how slow I was running—thank goodness for Wal-Mart and its cheap, unreliable merchandise. The feeling of invincibility I’d started out with had long since faded into stubborn determination. The last few hundred meters were anything but pretty, but I finished them.

As I jogged home, the intensity of my spontaneous little trip down memory lane started to settle on my bones. I noticed pain in places that hadn’t felt it in awhile—shins, arches, hamstrings. I felt like a true has-been, risking my health to prove to myself—and anyone else who happened to be hanging around (i.e. totally uninterested park maintenance personnel)—that I’ve still got it.

Then I realized that wasn’t the case at all. I had nothing to prove. I just missed the feeling that I had briefly experienced during my first interval—that inimitable sensation of quickness, weightlessness and power. I knew that sooner or later, I’d be back at the track for more.

Well, maybe after a few hot baths and a trip to the chiropractor.

The Mississippi Mystique

A few weeks ago, as I was heading out the door to go for a run, I discovered that my watch had died. I stared at the blank digital watch face in total disbelief and started smacking my wrist in an attempt to jolt it back to life.

When my efforts proved futile, I was ultimately forced to accept that it had, indeed, passed through the pearly gates of timepiece heaven. I had already spent 20 minutes of my valuable time squeezing into multiple layers of spandex, which meant that canceling my run was not an option. So I laced up my shoes, pulled on my gloves, and set out on the open road—watchless.

It was my best run in recent memory. I felt light and free—liberated from the burdens of mile splits and average pace. It was as if I were running in a vacuum of space where time as we know it does not exist.

I returned feeling refreshed and energized—so energized, in fact, that I hit the ground to hammer out a spontaneous plank series. (Note: I normally hate planks almost as much as I hate running skirts. I mean, come on, a skirt? Really? Do you see dudes running in Polo shirts and pleated shorts? Just saying.)

So I got down on the floor, and just as I was about to go into my first plank of the series, I realized that—duh—I had no way of timing each exercise. I racked my brain for a solution. I knew that if I counted, I would surely count too fast because planks suck and I would try—even if only subconsciously—to get through them as quickly as possible.

I needed to come up with a way to control my counting speed—to ensure that I put just the right amount of space in between numbers. Ah ha! I had it—the old “Mississippi” trick.

I hadn’t counted in Mississippis since about fifth grade—right around the time, incidentally, that I procured my first digital watch. It was a sea foam green Little Mermaid watch with a bubble-shaped face and a blinking mermaid fin—much nicer than the piece-of-crap Timex that had just given out on me.

Anyway, as I swiveled over onto my left arm and started my counting over again at “One Mississippi,” I had a thought. Why Mississippi?

It’s one of those questions that would be perfectly acceptable to bring up in normal, everyday conversation—if you’re under the age of 12. For adults who have jobs, bills, and mortgages to worry about, it’s just not a topic worthy of serious discussion. It’s like bologna or Canadian football or Whoopi Goldberg’s eyebrows—we’re all curious, but nobody has the time or energy to indulge their interest.

I know what you’re thinking. “Who cares? So what if it’s Mississippi and not Tennessee, Nevada or Ohio? Does it really matter?”

Well, I certainly understand your argument, but I must respectfully disagree. I believe the arbitrary designation of Mississippi as the only state widely recognized as a unit of time measurement is consummately unfair based on the following logic:

1.) The oral recitation of a number (i.e. “One”) followed by a four-syllable word (i.e. “Mississippi”) requires an allotment of time roughly equal to one second.

2.) There are exactly 14 states, besides Mississippi, whose names contain four syllables.

3.) Of those 14 states, four were admitted to the Union before Mississppi: Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Indiana.

4.) Like Mississippi, one of the 14 is also the name of a major river: Colorado.

5.) Finally, due to the rapid succession of “s” sounds in the word “Mississippi,” the exclusive use of this particular state name presents a distinct disadvantage to children (and adults, for that matter) who speak with a lisp.

And so, in an effort to remedy decades of discrimination against all other states that are equally qualified to represent a single second of time, please join me as I begin a counting revolution. Perhaps one day we will live in a world where children count in “Arizonas” and “Oklahomas” when they play games of hide and seek, where mothers with unruly children use “Minnesotas” and “North Dakotas” in their empty-threat countdowns to punishment.

So spread the word—and while you’re at it, remind people that running in a skirt makes them look completely ridiculous.