There are a couple sets of warm-up routines that I do before every run. Both of them end with front and side leg swings (15x per leg). For counting reps, sometimes I’d use English, other times Chinese. Last September, I re-started my study of Spanish that I’d begun many years ago, except now with Duolingo. So, in recent months, I’ve also used Spanish for counting reps (uno to quince and quince to uno). More recently, just for fun, I’ve tried counting in all three languages in rotating order. For example, using English->Chinese->Spanish, for right side leg kick: one, èr, tres, four, wǔ, seis, seven, bā, nueve, ten, shíyī, doce, thirteen, shísì, quince; and for left side leg kick: fifteen, shísì, trece, twelve, shíyī, diez, nine, bā, siete, six, wǔ, cuatro, three, èr, uno. (The Chinese here is pinyin, not the characters.) Different orders are more or less fluid in switching between languages. It seems, for example, Spanish->English->Chinese doesn’t flow as easily as English->Chinese->Spanish, which perhaps makes sense, i.e., the latter order is also that of my proficiency in the three languages.
Adding this fun
counting to my warm-ups is great for brain training, as is language learning in
general, especially as one ages. But, what does it do for running training or
racing?
Perhaps it
could be put to use during the latter miles of a marathon? Nah, probably not. Brain
usage is too energy-intensive, and a tiring body during those last miles is
already in an energy deficit. Plus, if one is already likely talking to God, is the mind going to want to count multilingually?
But, maybe in
those middle miles, say 15-20 (before the real race begins), which often feel
interminable, doing some mind-focused counting could help distract oneself from
those complaining legs and make the miles seem to go by faster? I already do
various counting routines during races and runs. This multilingual counting
would be another addition to my racing mental toolkit. In recent Sunday long runs, I’ve
tried it out and found it to be indeed useful-and fun!
