Read Online 50/50 by Dean Karnazes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dean Karnazes
Tags: SPO035000
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bringing your feelings and thoughts to the fore.
During my corporate years, our management team was put through a personality profile test called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The first of the four parameters measured was the subject’s disposition toward introversion or extroversion. When the facilitators went over my results with me, they said I had registered the highest score for introversion they had ever seen.
The Myers-Briggs test helped me understand a few things I had noticed about myself. It explained, for example, why I feel overwhelmed in large crowds, especially if I’m the focus of any attention. It also explained why running for hours by myself is so refreshing to my soul, whereas many people might find it mind numbing.
Having reflective alone time is essential to my well-being, and I am acutely aware of this fact. I certainly enjoy spending time with others and meeting new folks, but seldom am I able to pass more than a few hours in a group before my senses get overloaded and I begin eyeing the exit. That’s why, in the months leading up to the start of the Endurance 50, I worried about how I would deal with being surrounded by other people constantly for seven weeks. I would have no alone time whatsoever. While I would spend more than enough time running to satisfy my body’s yearning devotion to this activity, every stride would be taken in the company of at least a few fellow runners. I was facing the longest streak of non-solo running I had ever experienced. What would it do to me?
The first few days of The North Face Endurance 50 seemed to answer this question in an unexpected way. Far from draining the battery of my spirit, running with the other Endurance 50 participants charged it up. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of people each marathon attracted, and by the special group bond that formed among us day after day.
Marathon number seven, the Lincoln Marathon in Lincoln, Nebraska, gifted me with one of the most pleasant group running experiences of my life. The preceding night was a mixed bag. On the positive side, it being a Friday night, Julie flew in from San Francisco and met us at the hotel. But while her presence lifted my spirits, it had no effect on the nagging head cold I had recently acquired, which kept me stirring half the night.
The marathon starting line was located just outside the Nebraska University Coliseum and within a mile of our hotel, so we walked there—Mom, Dad, Julie, the kids, the crew, and me. It was a mild, fresh autumn morning—perfect running weather. A very diverse group of twenty-one runners joined me. At one extreme was a small handful of first-timers, including two of the seven women among us. At the other end of the spectrum was a guy who had run more than one hundred marathons. And somewhere in the middle was a pair of triathlete buddies who both worked and worked out together and planned to cover only half the distance today as a training run.
The Dean’s List
Prolonged strenuous exercise and overexertion can lower your body’s natural immunity to bugs. Here are some ways to fortify your immune system:
•
Mushrooms.
These edible fungi have been shown to boost your body’s so-called natural killer cells.
•
Echinacea
. Although controversial, some studies have found that it actually does reduce the severity and duration of colds.
•
Garlic
. Not only delicious, garlic contains allicin, which has immune-enhancing properties.
•
Probiotics
. Found in yogurt, probiotics are compounds that can boost the good bacteria in your gut.
Lincoln is a charming, low-density Midwestern city with lots of big, leafy trees and cheerful middle-class neighborhoods. It’s a great setting for a marathon, not least because its gently undulating landscape provides just enough up-and-down variation to keep things interesting but not so much as to make the 26.2-mile distance more difficult than it would otherwise be.
We made our way through the
During my corporate years, our management team was put through a personality profile test called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The first of the four parameters measured was the subject’s disposition toward introversion or extroversion. When the facilitators went over my results with me, they said I had registered the highest score for introversion they had ever seen.
The Myers-Briggs test helped me understand a few things I had noticed about myself. It explained, for example, why I feel overwhelmed in large crowds, especially if I’m the focus of any attention. It also explained why running for hours by myself is so refreshing to my soul, whereas many people might find it mind numbing.
Having reflective alone time is essential to my well-being, and I am acutely aware of this fact. I certainly enjoy spending time with others and meeting new folks, but seldom am I able to pass more than a few hours in a group before my senses get overloaded and I begin eyeing the exit. That’s why, in the months leading up to the start of the Endurance 50, I worried about how I would deal with being surrounded by other people constantly for seven weeks. I would have no alone time whatsoever. While I would spend more than enough time running to satisfy my body’s yearning devotion to this activity, every stride would be taken in the company of at least a few fellow runners. I was facing the longest streak of non-solo running I had ever experienced. What would it do to me?
The first few days of The North Face Endurance 50 seemed to answer this question in an unexpected way. Far from draining the battery of my spirit, running with the other Endurance 50 participants charged it up. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of people each marathon attracted, and by the special group bond that formed among us day after day.
Marathon number seven, the Lincoln Marathon in Lincoln, Nebraska, gifted me with one of the most pleasant group running experiences of my life. The preceding night was a mixed bag. On the positive side, it being a Friday night, Julie flew in from San Francisco and met us at the hotel. But while her presence lifted my spirits, it had no effect on the nagging head cold I had recently acquired, which kept me stirring half the night.
The marathon starting line was located just outside the Nebraska University Coliseum and within a mile of our hotel, so we walked there—Mom, Dad, Julie, the kids, the crew, and me. It was a mild, fresh autumn morning—perfect running weather. A very diverse group of twenty-one runners joined me. At one extreme was a small handful of first-timers, including two of the seven women among us. At the other end of the spectrum was a guy who had run more than one hundred marathons. And somewhere in the middle was a pair of triathlete buddies who both worked and worked out together and planned to cover only half the distance today as a training run.
The Dean’s List
Prolonged strenuous exercise and overexertion can lower your body’s natural immunity to bugs. Here are some ways to fortify your immune system:
•
Mushrooms.
These edible fungi have been shown to boost your body’s so-called natural killer cells.
•
Echinacea
. Although controversial, some studies have found that it actually does reduce the severity and duration of colds.
•
Garlic
. Not only delicious, garlic contains allicin, which has immune-enhancing properties.
•
Probiotics
. Found in yogurt, probiotics are compounds that can boost the good bacteria in your gut.
Lincoln is a charming, low-density Midwestern city with lots of big, leafy trees and cheerful middle-class neighborhoods. It’s a great setting for a marathon, not least because its gently undulating landscape provides just enough up-and-down variation to keep things interesting but not so much as to make the 26.2-mile distance more difficult than it would otherwise be.
We made our way through the
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