Self-torturing Ritual

Jogging is a fun self-torturing ritual. It's more fulfilling than banging your head on the wall.

A game of soccer is charged with adrenaline; your eyes can never stray away from the actions on the field; once you do, you get kicked in the balls. Swimming is pretty much a matter of life or death; you know you can't stop paddling until you reach the end of the pool or you'll drown.

Jogging, on the other hand, is as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. Except that you have to do it at a fast enough pace, or you'll have to call it "walking" instead. It sounds deceivingly simple, but it's as boring as watching a moustache grow. Occassionally, you bump into a hot chick on the jogging course but to be that lucky, you'll have to have amassed a hell lot of good karma in your previous lives. Instead, more often than that, you only get to jog together with shirtless uncles. So, you see, what keeps a jogger on the track is a sheer will of steel. And for fickle-hearted souls like me, it's a mental torture.

I had the worst jogging session today. After a long week of rain, the clouds had finally broken. A rainy day may be much dreaded but thanks to global warming, a sunny day in spring isn't quite as much a welcoming thought as it used to be. Today's a freaking 27゜C. Good for a bottle of scotch on a sun-kissed beach but certainly not for jogging under the scorching sun.

Nevertheless, I set off for my self-torturing ritual, feeling all eager to keep up to my previous personal record. My target was to go all the way to Futako-tamagawa roughly 7km away, and back, just like last time.

This was the route I took the other day. I didn't strictly followed the same route this morning but thanks to iMapMyRun that malfunctioned for the second time, I have to make do with this one.


Let's just blame it on the breakfast I skipped in the morning but for some reason, I was in low spirits. The red lights at the crossings pissed me off as much as the nicotine addicts puffing away by the streets. Even the slopes were killing me. Merely after 15 minutes, I started to doubt I could finish the course. The anticipation of running into a hot chick couldn't keep my attention on the track.

First bridge crossed. This was supposed to be the best part of the route but unfortunately, no breeze was blowing. To add to that, the sun was ridiculous. I wondered if by the time I finished the course, I'd be so badly sunburnt that my mom would mistake me as an Afro.

After crossing Marukobashi and turning right was the start of the jogging track. To my right was Tamagawa, where a bunch of anglers could be seen dozing away by the river. Along the river, there are more baseball fields than you can count, where aspiring kids train to be the next Ichiro Suzuki.

Futako-tamagawa could be seen in a distance. If it could be seen, it could't be too far away, eh? Yeah, right, 30 minutes away, to be exact. At this point, I started feeling as if I had had cow dung for breakfast. But I couldn't stop because my calves would start to hurt if I did. Anyway, I hate to admit it but I did make more than a few stops.

It felt almost as long as it takes to reach the end of the universe, but surprisingly, I managed to come to Futako-tamagawa within schedule. There were significantly less people there compared to Golden Week. After all, it was spring last week; today, it's summer. You don't go for BBQ in this weather unless you're thinking about getting yourself fried.

I soon came to the spot where we had our picnic last week. No picnickers there now. I thought I'd just lie down in the bushes and get dried up like a prune in the sun, till the next group of picnickers come by next Golden Week and discover my mummified body.

The last half of the course was more of a battle of mental strength. But I was just running a 15km course for goodness sake. By the time I train myself to finish a marathon course (if that ever happens), I'm sure I could light a match by mental power!

Now, here I am, feeling all achy in the calves and drained from the workout, physically and mentally. Preparation for the presentation? Nah, after a few episodes of my newfound entertainment, South Park.

But despite all that, I guess I'll be off in my running shoes again next week.