I just read an article from National Geographic that was titled “Runners Show Less Fatigue After 200 Miles Than 100 Miles.” The gist of the article is that, after testing muscles and blood for inflammation and fatigue on the molecular level, the people who had run twice as far were less tired. This is being hailed as a major medical and scientific breathrough, but honestly, parents have known this for thousands of years. They could have just asked one of us.
It is a very clear and well known fact that the more tired your child becomes, the more energy they will produce. I know that mankind has been attempting to create a perpetual motion machine for as long as such a concept has been around, but I could make one in about five minutes. Simply put my three year old son into a giant hamster wheel and let him go. He will start out at normal, but as he starts to tire he will go faster and crazier, until his level of awakeness approaches zero and his level of enegry output approaches infinity. Energy crisis solved!
We had a busy day yesterday, and there was no time for napping. We went straight from a morning at Echo Science Center to an afternoon of cleaning the entire house, Ruby’s first swimming lesson, and then a dinner at church. Edward did alright until about halfway through the swimming lesson, when he started to get tired. I could tell he was getting tired because of his increased energy. After being reprimanded by about every swimming instructor there for running, playing on the stairs, splashing people trying to take swimming lessons, and being a general nuisance, we left.
Edward and I headed over to church for the dinner, where Ruby and my wife would meet us later. The tiredness was increasing rapidly, which was evident by the way that Edward started shouting and giggling at the top of his lungs and racing around in circles. I did manage to get him into a chair, where he hopped up and down violently for an hour, but he did not eat much. This only gave him more energy. As you all know, energy is not produced in children from consuming food, or from resting or sleeping. Energy is created by a lack of these things.
By the time we got home Edward was producing approximately as much energy as a hydrogen bomb, which meant that it was bedtime. To distract him while his bedtime routine was prepared, I played a game called “Hulk Smash,” which I invented on the spot. I would crouch on the floor and wait until he just couldn’t take the suspense anymore, and then I would pounce, yelling “HULK SMASH!” and landing on him, while he laughed so loud that his vocal sound waves cracked neighboring planets.
The only problem is, this equation doesn’t seem to work on adults. The more tired I get, the less energy I seem to have. Weird. So it is quite believable to me that running 200 miles will give you less fatigue than 100 miles. But I think we ought to alert the racing commission for possible cheating. Those runners that they tested were obviously injecting themselves with toddler blood before the race.