For the first time in my life, I actually felt an adrenaline rush because I was angry. I don’t understand human psychology or physiology. I don’t understand how adrenaline works. I don’t know much about the fight or flight response. What I do know now from personal experience is that anger results in an adrenaline rush which in turn triggers something inside you that makes hard running effortless.
Here is what happened. I was at The Village on a treadmill running pyramid intervals. My training today was to start with a 10-minute warmup and a 10-minute cool-down . The intervals were as follows:
- 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy (times 2)
- 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy (times 2)
- 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy
- 4 minutes hard, 4 minutes easy
- 2 minutes hard, 2 minutes easy
- 1 minute hard, 1 minute easy (times 2)
- 30 seconds hard, 30 seconds easy (times 2)
There is a row of television screens right in front of the treadmills. I was watching USA versus Brasil (soccer) and Serena versus Venus (tennis) on the two screens in front of me. The incident happened during my final 2-minute pyramid interval.
A buff guy casually walked up and changed soccer channel to Fox news. I watched him just pick up the remote and click, click, click. This annoyed me. I took off my headphones and yelled out, “Hey, I was watching soccer. Can you put it back?” He mumbled something under his breath. I couldn’t hear him. This annoyed me more. Then he proceed to ask me, “What channel was it on?” I didn’t know. I was running hard and boiling over with a few choice expletives for him in my head. I told him it was one of the ESPN channels. In an very annoyed tone, I added, “Maybe you should ask before changing channels.” This is when he lashed out at me, “I did, you a$$hole” as he changed it back to soccer. I didn’t reply back. I looked away in anger and disgust. I felt the adrenaline rush. I was running at a hard pace but all of a sudden it felt easy. It felt smooth. I looked down at the treadmill. The speed was 8.5 (which translates to about 7-minute-mile pace). Normally I would be huffing and puffing but at that very moment, it felt like I could go on for ever. I may as well have been walking leisurely in a park. I was pleasantly surprised. Lesson learned: so that’s what they call an adrenaline rush!
After I was done running, I saw the buff guy on the stair-master. His face was buried in his iPad as he struggled up the stairs. I went up to him and apologized. He did the same. We bumped fists to smooth it out. It’s a guy thing!
I ended up running 6+ miles in 48 minutes. It felt great!