Post date: Jan 03, 2020 4:48:20 AM
i've been running ever since i wanted to keep up with my dad, as a little kid. i consider the moment i became a runner as when my dad challenged (i.e: told) me once to run a half-marathon and i was too young to consider otherwise.
the funny thing is that i don't keep track of the moment i decided that i wasn't a runner anymore. instead, i think of myself as someone who runs, someone with a running habit perhaps .. someone who used to be a runner.
i now teach students who were born before i used to be a runner.
that said, i'm also someone who occasionally does a little rock climbing .. not that i would consider myself a climber or anything.
...
the worst thing about climbing, especially when you learn it as an adult, is adjusting to the chemical effects.
of the runners i've met, it's the ones who started as adults who i hear most talk about the "runner's high." i think it's because, having not run regularly as children or adolescents, their bodies are unaccustomed to the chemicals that appear suddenly in the body when in the process of running. they're much more susceptible to these chemical effects.
for some, it makes them addicts.
i believe that similar effects occur with rock climbing. for me, if i don't climb for a while and start from "scratch" then the first climbing session in a while means that my body gets pumped up with a lot of new chemicals, hormones ... who knows? maybe one of those is epinephrine (i.e adrenaline).
all i know is that i never get a good night's sleep after the first climbing session after a long-enough hiatus. i wouldn't call it a purgatory, but i wouldn't call it paradise, either.
anyway, today's the first day that i went climbing in a while. i might be in for a long night ..