The 11th Hour, or, No Hairballs Please


On August 20th, 1974, in a baseball game between the Angels and Tigers, Nolan Ryan threw a fastball that clocked in at 101 miles an hour. (At that time, the fastest recorded pitch.)  If you do the math, it means the ball traveled the 60.5 feet to home plate in four tenths of a second, a remarkable feat when you consider that it takes a half second for the conscious brain to even process information. How could any batter stand a chance of getting a hit when Ryan was “bringing the heat” a full tenth of a second ahead of their conscious brain?

It turns out Mr. Subconscious Brian is calling the shots, or in this case, swinging the bat, with virtually no time delay.  Your subconscious brain is the star of the show. It's also about 95-98% of your grey matter. Your conscious brain is more like the weather app on your cell phone: really nice to have, but somewhat overrated. Although there is linkage between Mr. Conscious and Mr. Subconscious Brain, Mr. C acts more the part of the White House Press Secretary, often not even consulted on key matters. (Precisely why you ate the entire carton of Häagen-Dazs last night in one sitting)

I tend to think of the subconscious brain the way I think of a housecat: walks on the counters, ignores you when you call it, and will retch up a hairball at the slightest provocation, basically brings you nothing.

On the other hand, the weather app on my cell phone is  bringing the heat––and the humidity. 88 wet degrees in Waconia, Minnesota tomorrow.  Any other day, this would be wonderful, because Minnesota usually gets just warm enough to pull your icehouse off the lake, expunge it of leftover wall-eye heads, and load it back up with Grain Belt beer.


Here's the problem.

Tomorrow is the Lake Waconia half marathon, (the culmination of goal # 2, my 8 minute mile  push) My conscious brain is more than willing to venture out into the dry cleaner-esque heat, go the distance, kick some ass, and stand at the lake’s edge amidst beer bottles and fish carcasses to affirm that I am indeed “Spartacus”.

But it’s not up to my conscious brain tomorrow, is it? It’s Mr. Subconscious Brain, with his dark ruminations about heat stroke, leg fatigue, heart attacks and all the predictability of a house cat, that will be calling the shots––or in this case, running the race.

I am concerned. What if Mr. Subconscious begins a slow insidious chant from beyond the sunshine of reason, probably around mile marker seven? Something like, “You’re too old for this, and you know running sucks––that’s right, you know running sucks; how are those calves feeling right about now, you Steve Prefontane wannabe? I’m thinking about killing you, but here’s the kicker: not until you're just seven steps short of the finish line….”

My conscious brain has been quietly reassessing this running thing all day. Even if my subconscious tries to take me out at the end, I figure I've got 1/2 second before I'm aware of it. That's a half a second to believe I actually completed the race.

In retrospect, maybe I should have taken up baseball.

Maybe golf.

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