The Secret Life of NARPs

As we walked into the dining hall for our seasoned potato cubes on Saturday morning, the student body was shockingly hyper, reminiscent of Charlie Sheen on tiger’s blood (#winning). Still in our pajamas, we meandered to our anti-social corner in the side cove of Ross and overheard conversations from students on the following subjects: the dedicated Brooker inhabitants waking up at sunrise to trek up Snake Mountain, the dedicated biddies waking up at sunrise to trek up Snake Mountain for an Instagram that might just make the popular page, our fellow half-marathon trainers showing more dedication and fitness than we ever will on a weekend morning and Sci-fi nerds discussing their morning LARP — live action role playing — session.

When we found ourselves sitting with a group of girls who had awoken at 7 a.m. to go on a  8-mile run (questionable if this is humanly possible), we felt a surge of motivation. Although our exhausting night of watching Zoolander in bed had taken a lot out of us, we were infected with Spring Fever and decided to embark on our own Saturday long-run. Before we exited Battell, Maddie had a surprise up her sleeve. She smugly whipped out two packets of Gu from under her pillow and presented one to Izzy. For those of you unfamiliar with this beautiful invention (Izzy was right there with you), Gu is an energy-packed gel that runners consume during particularly long runs to refuel. With a glimmer in her eyes, Maddie said to Izzy “Today is the day.” With the gel packets in our sports bras and our Katy Perry playing in sync we headed outside. We must admit that the sensation of the warm air grazing our bare limbs left our appallingly long leg hair standing on end (sorry for the image). After mile five, Maddie enthusiastically pointed towards her bra and Izzy mistakenly gave her a thumbs up thinking she was questioning how her boobs looked. She then realized Maddie was referencing the Gu packets. We paused our run to very dramatically rip open the packets and squeeze the suspiciously viscous material into our mouths. When we use the word dramatically we want you to know Maddie unplugged her headphones and played the theme from Rocky. We continued our run with sticky mouths and a very strong craving for water. After approximately one more mile, Maddie reached her breaking point and started dry heaving on the side of the road. How ironic that the girl who slept with these packets under her pillow for good luck could not handle the “Chocolate Outrage” flavored Gu and had to walk the rest of the way home with teary eyes (caused by the lurching of her stomach NOT because she is a crybaby). Izzy parted ways with her companion, and finished the run for the both of them. Although not without being surprise-attacked by two horses that had escaped from Morgan Horse Farm. True fact.

As our only long-run of the week, we were not able to train all of the five days that our schedule called for. This is because this past week illustrated one of the most difficult aspects of this campus: achieving balance. When the most utilized emojis of the week included every face with either arched eyebrows or uncontrollable tears, it was no surprise Atwater ran out of to-go boxes at lunch and dinner dates were rainchecked for meals of coffee and more coffee at the library. For those of you who did not relate to these feelings, clearly you are taking Earthquakes and Volcanoes (Izzy sure is) or The Creative Process (don’t take her spot during Fall registration). Although we wanted nothing more than to run our stress away down Weybridge street, there was simply no time. Weeks like this will happen to us all (probably too often), but figuring out how to survive until Friday is an incredibly useful skill. If anything this week has given us a greater respect for all the student athletes on campus, who deserve a shoutout for somehow making it through the weeks with an athletic schedule that is significantly less sporadic and more strenuous than ours.