Running log 1

On keeping a log

Today I ran for the first time in half a year or something and wanna keep a log. I used to keep a log in English every time I ran or went to track and field club, but crap, that was more than three years ago. My English writing has somewhat become exclusively for academic writing, so another aim is this note is to put myself back into the realm of informal English writing, whether it be simple as simple English. 

Recall

Today was awful in that I skipped THREE classes and a third, one being evolutionary ecology which explores fern plants' displacement and diversification in the Cenozoic era, another being lecture on how William Bridgman (high pressure physicist) was nominated to Nobel Prize by his Harvard colleagues, the other being comparing Hunayn ibn Ishaq's translation of Galen's commentary on Hippocrates' Aphorisms, and, a third being just a plain French language class, so, well, how did I miss them? 

Yesterday 

The reason is simple: I couldn't get up, and strangely this time not just from usual sleep deficit. Yes I slept for five hours in Sunday night and 4.5 hours on Monday, stacking up that usual sleep deficit. I had to carry my suitcase yesterday, with two stops in the way. In Kasumigaseki station where I was meant to return three books to beloved Hibiya Library, I fell unconscious in the station bench for 10 minutes and couldn't get on my feet even after I was conscious. I consumed two snacks I carried with me just in case before I finally went on to return the books. Second stop was Sendagi station where I was ment to borrow a book from not-so-much beloved but important Nezu Library. I have recovered by then but still had a hard time moving my legs. I should have slept in the train after that but to stationarize my suitcase I needed to keep awake, leading to an unexpected nightmare. At home I had shower for the first time in 70 hours, watched International News Report, ate dinner, did some harmful mobile game, and tried to go to sleep but like usual didn't find life satisfactory and opened YouTube. The result was that YouTube has proven enticing too much hedonism to me. In no time my appetite, superficial hunger surpasses the need to sleep. It was not until 1:30 that I fell asleep.

Today before school

I set alarms in time for the 1st period. I felt nothing. When my sleep is too deep, even multiple layers of alarm doesn't penetrate it. That was half ok. Before this I have skipped classes in 1st period out of oversleeping, and that improves me performance for the rest of the day by a huge degree. But I needed to be in time for the second period, for, though I didn't have second period today, I had to do some work on Adobe Illustrator which is in computers at the campus. I became awake when it was usual departure time for the second period. I got up, filled up my stomach, should've left by that but was still sleepy and did that harmful mobile game. Then I felt like "but today second period is off and I can easily skip the fourth period, so why not sleep now?"and it was done. 
Times passed and it was barely in time for the 3rd period. I had a dream of taking a free train with comfortable cross seats resembling express trains in Vietnam, going from Tokyo to Fukuoka and then crossing an underwater tunnel to Korean peninsula, stopping at Busan Seoul, Pyongyang, entering China from Sinuiju (新義州)… I was excited to enter North Korea. That train eventually leads to somewhere in Europe (not Moscow I recall) and that was brilliantly terrific. I repeat, it's free. 
So I didn't want to escape from that dream, and when I did, I found my body heavy, reluctant to get up. I needed to. I have some classmates waiting for my work using Adobe Illustrator. I have professors expecting my responses in the class (the three classes I missed all have about 5 people enrolled, so absence of one will be unmistakeable). But I couldn't. Blame it on the weather. Blame it on me who goes home too late every day with that stupid mobile game. I'd rather like the weather blamed, then unfortunately it was almost same temperature as yesterday. 


At the long last, at 14:25, I could get up to grab some black coffee. Coffee vitalizes me. I managed to get out of home under a weather swallowing up my energy. In thirty minutes I read through class handouts for the first period which of course I should've attended. I did a light assignment for that class. Lucky that the contents was both familiar and interesting to me. Then it was time for a challenging task: creating a roadmap of quantum computing technology. It is what my classmates are waiting for. Why me? Why a student with humanities background like myself? That's what science and technology studies (STS) is about. I scrolled through other students' comments and already written slides, browsed through class handouts once again to pick a format. Finally at the campus I drew some drafts on my notebook for 30 minutes until all that was left was work on Adobe Illustrator. With my poor skills especially with anchor points in curves the roadmap was done, costing me another 30 minutes for French class.
There was not much to talk about French class except that I recovered that 30 minutes pretty soon. Then I need to go home, nope, I left home just 4 hours ago! However that kind of thinking only yields another day with nonperiodical sleep rhythm. So well, wait, am I not wearing sports pants? And shoes suited for running? And, on top of everything, a t-shirt from my highschool track and field club? So I hopped out of the students' common room to stride towards Oda athletic field in Yoyogi park until, I checked Twitter account @Oda_ikuiku to see if I can use the field, finding that it has been closed since April 14. I was like the famous "Huh?" cat in the famous meme. Nevertheless I need to run today, or my life will be mundane as usual with frequent exhaustion from like carrying a suitcase for 650 metres… As there was no place to keep my luggage safely I had to pay 200 yen for coin locker. Now I think I was lucky that coin lockers were vacant with only 200 yen to spare but then my standard was 0 yen (that's true if you can use the athletic field) so was still kind of disappointed. 

Locker. 200 yen for 12 hrs.

Running 

That disappointment quickly faded as I directed my attention to environment. Environment is what surrounds a system and I am a system in myself. Inhales, exhales, watches beeping, busy footsteps, casual chats after a practice, roundup meeting of a club, everything reminded me of my olden days when I stood or ran inside Oda Field. Due to the field closed, there were more professional-looking, competitive people in Yoyogi park jogging course. I started running without further ado. I was outrun by most runners. They were so faaaast… they looked like charging all the way throughout a lap, and indeed they were. I saw many runners stop after a while, so I suspect that menus which would've been done in the field is underway. But putting that kind of athletes aside I couldn't help my body has slowed down in this year since I stopped talking P.E. class at university. For first few hundred metres I combatted light pain in my stomach. After that it went smooth. I think I could keep a consistent pace and a form. My face went up from time to time but I pulled it back to facing front, reducing the pace by a bit. I thought a smartphone in my hand while running to be troublesome, water in my another hand more so. Then I found water server along the running track. Crap. 
I am a super non-screener. Usually when I read something or walk somewhere, I can't help thinking different stuff diverged from what I just saw. The city is full of information and distractions. Maybe it was nice for me to stay in Komaba surrounded by residential areas. Otherwise I would be drowned in commercial, business district much closer to the heart of Tokyo. 
Even without ADHD diagnosis (I won't discuss here whether I am fit for that), my brain suffer from hyperactivity. Sometimes I get too curious about one word I saw somewhere on the internet or during class to detriment of my schoolwork. That means taking too much classes to spend not enough time on my major. To mend this I need to practice focusing on something, not just by reading a book without smartphone, because I have to train my body for some reason. Running is a lifelong enjoyment, so is learning and research. I won't let any of them go too overlooked. That's why I had to run. Despite this, while I was running, I was a non-screener as I had been ever since. Running was basically fast walking. There was a border between them, both technically and psychologically, except that that psychology is not from my brain or sensory organs but from muscles and vertebral nerves. Muscles can send positive information to the brain which releases dopamine or beta-endorphin, remember? So speaking of sensory organs, I looked left and right, observed information and my brain was busy processing them. There was a rap music in some Indian-sounding language, two women taking in Russian-sounding language, a boy blasting beside me, downhill slope to now underground Kōhone river to the west of the park… upon withing this I recollect that my trait as a terrible non-screener was alleviated while running. Generally I could focus on my body. I was looking to the front, to a curve a hundred metres to go. When my pace fell I picked it up by swinging my arms. I could feel fitness in my torso just like I ran as a competitor years ago.
After three laps, I thought it was time to go back to studying so stopped. I could do more but I didn't want to create a bad memory from running. As I ran to the locker I realized that location history on my phone wasn't functioning properly perhaps because I set it on low power mode. When I looked up from phone, buildings in Shibuya looked more magnificent than usual. Sweats on camera made it blurred like that.

Left: building above Keio Shibuya station. Center: some random building in Shibuya. Right: iconic high-rise residence just beside the athletic field

Closing

It was comfortable, and surprisingly I wasn't tired at all and had all energy to study Arabic in train back home or write this blog. My analysis is that I was utilizing different kind of muscle from what I usually use commuting or going to libraries. I want to keep on running to uncover fabled streets of this megalopolis. Maybe being a non-screener will make running more enjoyable. That was a reason I could do both competitive track sport and competitive quizzing, but for now this kind of retrospective reasoning is just a hypothesis. I have different kind of history studies with different kind of historical references. Now the only historical references are my running logs I used to keep three years ago, and this note post containing more than eleven thousand words. I'm terms of approaching, it's almost midnight and I still haven't done a Duolingo lesson for today, so farewell, for another  mobile game.

Speaking of mobile game, running is pretty mobile, and is for fun, for refresh, so isn't it a mobile game? Beneficent this time.