...As in the cartoon bear. I hope you all got that reference and if not, you need to catch up on your pre-Spongebob cartoons. Actually, in pre-retrospect (is that a thing?) I'm not sure that Yogi is the best example to use the purposes of this blog. I'll let you decide.
So, a common example used in the anatomy/physiology world to describe the differences between the autonomic and somatic nervous systems is that of outrunning a bear. Essentially, the example serves to demonstrate that you see the bear and your somatic (a.k.a voluntary) nervous system kicks into gear when you conscientiously decide to move your leg muscles and get the hell away from the bear. Your autonomic nervous system is also like "holy shit, it's a bear" and makes all of your glands secrete all of these stress hormones to make you sweat like a pig and they dump a high dose of adrenaline into your system. Clearly I paid attention in class...
On a seemingly unrelated note (but it actually is related, otherwise why would it follow that example? My blogs generally follow a sequence of related thoughts), my training for the Bolder Boulder 10K race has begun. I know you are all vicariously excited. And any of you readers running the Bolder Boulder as well are the-opposite-of-vicariously excited. All of you who know me personally (random creepers who stumbled across this blog via a search engine, please leave) know about my semi-abusive, love-hate relationship with running. We are talking Chris Brown and Rihanna style love-hate. One day, Running (now that it is personified, I can capitalize it) leaves me battered and bruised and on the cover of a Los Angeles-based tabloid contemplating our abusive relations to readers desperate for their daily intake of celebrity gossip. The next, the same readers are cooing at a paparazzi-snapped photograph of Running presenting me with an elegant bouquet of crimson roses. They are just, like, so totally in LOVE! (Because that's how tabloid readers talk, and they also seem to have poor short term memory since they forgot to photo of my beaten face resulting from Running's abuse that was on the cover just yesterday... morons.)
The initial stages of my daily run consist of my mind incessantly nagging at me to stop and desperately asking why exactly I am doing this, and me screaming at it to shut up and take the pain, feel the burn, no pain no gain, insert other physical trainer phrase to get you pumped here. This mental struggle lasts for quite awhile, usually until my crankiness overpowers my will to be fit or whatever and I stop. That normally happens at around mile 3. However, another little tasty tidbit of information I learned is that during the first 15-20 or so minutes, depending on the individual, our bodies use anaerobic respiration which basically sucks, is inefficient and makes you feel like crap. After that, however, the body is like "wow, this sucks, and I could generate a lot more ATP through aerobic respiration!" and then you feel like a rockstar on a drug high but without the drugs undoubtedly leading to rehab. What confuses me is why the body is so moronic and seems to "forget" that it has the aerobic respiration ability.
Anyways, since I have been training, I have had no choice but to push myself beyond my "running comfort zone" (which essentially doesn't exist- or so I thought). In doing so, I have discovered the EXACT moment at which my body has its a-ha moment and transitions from slow, unproductive anaerobic to efficient, speedy and awesome anaerobic. 3.2 miles. All those runs preceding the ones since I have begun training, I was .2 miles away from the "I can do anything! WOO" feeling. Now I will tell all of you, those first 3.2 miles are, not to be dramatic, rather hellish. To stick with the personification of running theme, that would equate to Running beating me senseless and then admitting he was wrong and taking me out to get Indian food for the next five nights in a row (because that completely makes up for the beating me senseless part).
Now, to draw the bear thing back into context. We talked in class about how making sure you have a strong cardiovascular system (by partaking in athletic events like running) is crucial in case you need to outrun a bear (or at least outrun the person you are with so they are the one that ends up bear dinner [or breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day. I'm not really sure that bears have set "meal times" in the wild, but you could ask a zoologist if you cared that much]). However, I don't think the bear would be willing to give me a 3.2 mile head start and wait for me to pant and wheeze and internally struggle mentally before it started to chase me. Well, maybe Yogi would. But he is not too threatening. If I remember correctly, he just eats picnics.
So, a common example used in the anatomy/physiology world to describe the differences between the autonomic and somatic nervous systems is that of outrunning a bear. Essentially, the example serves to demonstrate that you see the bear and your somatic (a.k.a voluntary) nervous system kicks into gear when you conscientiously decide to move your leg muscles and get the hell away from the bear. Your autonomic nervous system is also like "holy shit, it's a bear" and makes all of your glands secrete all of these stress hormones to make you sweat like a pig and they dump a high dose of adrenaline into your system. Clearly I paid attention in class...
On a seemingly unrelated note (but it actually is related, otherwise why would it follow that example? My blogs generally follow a sequence of related thoughts), my training for the Bolder Boulder 10K race has begun. I know you are all vicariously excited. And any of you readers running the Bolder Boulder as well are the-opposite-of-vicariously excited. All of you who know me personally (random creepers who stumbled across this blog via a search engine, please leave) know about my semi-abusive, love-hate relationship with running. We are talking Chris Brown and Rihanna style love-hate. One day, Running (now that it is personified, I can capitalize it) leaves me battered and bruised and on the cover of a Los Angeles-based tabloid contemplating our abusive relations to readers desperate for their daily intake of celebrity gossip. The next, the same readers are cooing at a paparazzi-snapped photograph of Running presenting me with an elegant bouquet of crimson roses. They are just, like, so totally in LOVE! (Because that's how tabloid readers talk, and they also seem to have poor short term memory since they forgot to photo of my beaten face resulting from Running's abuse that was on the cover just yesterday... morons.)
The initial stages of my daily run consist of my mind incessantly nagging at me to stop and desperately asking why exactly I am doing this, and me screaming at it to shut up and take the pain, feel the burn, no pain no gain, insert other physical trainer phrase to get you pumped here. This mental struggle lasts for quite awhile, usually until my crankiness overpowers my will to be fit or whatever and I stop. That normally happens at around mile 3. However, another little tasty tidbit of information I learned is that during the first 15-20 or so minutes, depending on the individual, our bodies use anaerobic respiration which basically sucks, is inefficient and makes you feel like crap. After that, however, the body is like "wow, this sucks, and I could generate a lot more ATP through aerobic respiration!" and then you feel like a rockstar on a drug high but without the drugs undoubtedly leading to rehab. What confuses me is why the body is so moronic and seems to "forget" that it has the aerobic respiration ability.
Anyways, since I have been training, I have had no choice but to push myself beyond my "running comfort zone" (which essentially doesn't exist- or so I thought). In doing so, I have discovered the EXACT moment at which my body has its a-ha moment and transitions from slow, unproductive anaerobic to efficient, speedy and awesome anaerobic. 3.2 miles. All those runs preceding the ones since I have begun training, I was .2 miles away from the "I can do anything! WOO" feeling. Now I will tell all of you, those first 3.2 miles are, not to be dramatic, rather hellish. To stick with the personification of running theme, that would equate to Running beating me senseless and then admitting he was wrong and taking me out to get Indian food for the next five nights in a row (because that completely makes up for the beating me senseless part).
Now, to draw the bear thing back into context. We talked in class about how making sure you have a strong cardiovascular system (by partaking in athletic events like running) is crucial in case you need to outrun a bear (or at least outrun the person you are with so they are the one that ends up bear dinner [or breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day. I'm not really sure that bears have set "meal times" in the wild, but you could ask a zoologist if you cared that much]). However, I don't think the bear would be willing to give me a 3.2 mile head start and wait for me to pant and wheeze and internally struggle mentally before it started to chase me. Well, maybe Yogi would. But he is not too threatening. If I remember correctly, he just eats picnics.
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| Not threatening- probably would not chase you |
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| Freaking terrifying- according to Stephen Colbert, the number one threat to our nation. This is probably the one that ate the guy in Alaska |
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