miracles of team spirit

I have never liked running or the idea of it, except maybe dashes over a short distance. The idea to carry on for more than 10 seconds has always been disturbing: it is painful, robotically numbing and uneventful.

When I see joggers, I wonder why they choose this self-torture. Their arguments fall into several categories: cerebral health reasons, addictive ecstasy-like experiences after the exercise and achievement/challenge motivations.

Quite unexpectedly, a casual lunch-time talk among non-runners in the office amounted to a resolution to give it a try. It was agreed to make it around the West Park, a one mile run. We allowed a month for practice: everybody was sure they would not make it. I honestly attempted the distance on my own a few days before the agreed date. I managed less than half, and it was hopeless: panting, red-veil effect, lack of motivation.

However, to respect the agreement, I did turn up at 9 a.m (sic!) on the Jubilee Day at the gazebo. My hope was that nobody would show up, and I would spend time watching trees and picking specimens for my herbarium.

When they did come, I failed to talk people out of attempting the intimidating immensity of the mile and into setting a reduced goal instead. We agreed that we were marking the starting level; setting a baseline against which to measure the progress, if we wanted to stay on the task.

Low baseline makes progress more visible and rewarding, we said, anticipating a quick and certain defeat.

But guess what? Everybody finished, even me! In 12 minutes. My only explanation is that it was the group effect. And it was not difficult for me, either. Not as difficult, as I expected or imagined. (A cynic might say that it is a case of low expectations inflating the outcomes).

It was a good long day after that, filled with quiet pastimes and pleasant mindless errands, none of which were on the TODO.

Now, we decided to have progress-recording runs every first Saturday each months. Give me more surprises!