Karen writes: Magic

Endurance runners have to believe in magic.  Otherwise you would be terribly sensible and give up what is essentially a pretty insane sort of activity.   Many of us believe in the magic of supplements which are sure to make you feel great and perform better.  How about the magic of ritual and routine, or that of creams and lotions and potions and stretches and carbo-loading and compression and miracle fabrics.  The only magic you may try to avoid for as long as you can is that of medical science with it's nasty habit of recommending things like giving up running when something hurts, or providing frightening forms of pain relief with lists of consequences and contraindications which don't make the effort seem worth it.

It is nice to always have one thing in the magic spectrum which even for a runner seems a bit 'out there', however you don't dismiss it because after all, one day it might be the only thing you have left to try before you have to finally do what the Doctor tells you.  Like stick-on titanium dots, which are NOT described as magic by their proponents, but as SCIENCE.  The man at the Rotorua marathon expo wasn't going to take the time to explain how his dots worked, he also wasn't impressed with my comment about how convenient it must be to have a titanium joint replacement to achieve the same thing.  In between giving extravagant guarantees of the efficacy of the rather innocuous looking 'dots' should they be applied before the race (and left on for 5 days after), he was keen to point out the research papers displayed on the wall from our own, reputable, Massey university.

I've now googled 'titanium dots running' and the strange stuff which comes up under that search-word combination leaves me completely at sea in terms of how they are expected to work.  I do however admit to a sample packet stashed away in my bag.  I didn't use them for the Saturday marathon in spite of the exhortations of the Dot man, they are carefully hoarded in the event that I need them for when all other magical avenues (except the Doctor) have been exhausted.  I could very possibly have to eat my words then, I do hope so, magic would seem to be the foundation my running is built on.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Still...swim, cycle, run...walk

Karen writes: Swimming pool blues

Karen writes: Obstacles