A few years back I was standing on the sideline of a football pitch with another dad. We watched the team play, naturally focusing on our own kids. At half-time, he turned to me with an oddly direct question: “When did you last move so hard that you had to lie flat on your back in the grass just to recover?”
I was thrown. Where was this going? Was he politely pointing out that I didn’t look particularly fit? Or was he about to discuss his burnout while holding a sausage and beer?
Burnout? Terrible topic. But no. He just wanted to share an observation: We’ve become too comfortable. We’ve lost connection with our bodies. We’re puffing after a few stairs, completely unaware of what our bodies can actually do. To find out, we should deliberately challenge ourselves physically, he explained.
Life is uniform and boring enough already — so why do we run (if we run at all) only at pulse 130 or in economy mode? What are we saving ourselves for? Is there even anything left to save?
Fascinating conversation. Not because it came out of nowhere, but because we never discussed the consequence, the “so what”. We just turned back to watch the field. It was simply clear that Saturday afternoon. We can’t always drive in first gear to save fuel over the long haul. We need to use the whole gearbox, fill out the entire spectrum. That includes flooring it sometimes — but consciously, on our own initiative, not because we feel driven.
Stress isn’t harmful. It becomes unhealthy when it’s too much, too often. Try this on your next run: After twenty minutes, accelerate and run fast as long as you can. A few minutes is enough. Then stop or cross your arms over your head and breathe deeply, feel your heart pounding loudly. Remember that you’re here, not waiting for something or someone.
From reinergaertner.de, est. 1997. Translated with the help of an AI that speaks better English than I do. Which isn’t saying much, after 25 years of Denglish.