Mutiny

If my legs could be personified, you would have seen them standing there, tight lips, turned into a defiant frown, like a straw with both ends melted, pointed downward in the same direction as their attitude. A single arm stabbed purposefully in the air with a middle finger perched proudly on top like a light house on a rocky crag.

When I run, there is a part of my brain that calls out cadence, tosses out commands, barks orders, pushes people around.  Upon seeing my leg's defiant mutiny, his face turned red, a furrowed scowl grew on his face, his lips turned down also, but briefly.  And then the lips parted slowly.  Stringy pieces of spit clung to the top and bottom teeth like they were trying to pull the whole crevasse back together.  And then came a low and building wail "Mommy! They are being mean to me!" and then he clenched his fists, stomped his feet and stamped in a circle and then ran to his room sobbing uncontrollably.

I watched the whole thing unfold in my head in amazement.  Monday's run seemed so effortless.  It barely bothered me at all.  With the exception of the onset of the horrible chaffing issue, it was almost... if but, a trace bit, enjoyable.  And then today.  Legs just threw off the shackles and said "ENOUGH!" I ended up walking most of my run this morning. What did I do different?

Then it occurred to me.  In the mornings I never feel hungry. The thought of food, most of the time when I wake up makes me want to trot to the bathroom grab the toilet bowl with both hands and start calling out for my long lost friend "RALPH!" Here's what I figure.  Hunger is controlled by a series of chemical reactions in the body, like ghrelin, insulin and who knows what else play this balancing act.  When the scales get off balance your brain interprets that as hunger.  Obviously, my body chemistry is in standby mode when I wake up.  It takes a few hours for things to fire up and get going.

Serotonin is a chemical in our bodies that give us a feeling of well-being.  If my system is on standby then it is impossible for me to feel happiness in the mornings.  I am an autonomous shell of a man lethargically bumping my way around, completely void of logical thought processes or capable of feeling happy.  You would think, in this robotic state of being, I could just charge out there and hammer out my run before I even knew what was going on. Not so.  Boy is there a huge difference in my performance in the evenings compared to my mornings.  Just further proof that this kid is a night person and should not do anything in the mornings but sleep.