The Hot Cup Of Coffee Corollary

There’s a theorem. Or maybe it’s a rule. Actually it’s more of a guideline than a rule. In any case, when you are carrying a completely filled to the top cup of hot coffee you have two choices — OPTION 1: walk ever so slowly, trying to hold your hand steady and invariably sloshing scaldingly hot JOE all over oneself. OPTION 2: ignore the drink and just don’t think about it. The latter would let you do your regional final junior gymnastics floor routine and not spill a drop.

The tough thing is, if you ever think at all about NOT thinking about that filled cup, you’ve already thought about it and SPLISH-SPLASH–you’re taking a bath in ground bean and water.

The corollary to this in running involves tripping. If you just run, empty your mind of thoughts of the mechanics of raising one foot after another while instinctively avoiding potholes, tree roots, or other obstacles in the way, you’re surprisingly nimble and generally don’t trip. But if you overthink it… If you try the option 1 approach of the filled to the brim brew, you will then only mentally get in the way of the physicality; the odds of your tripping go up exponentially.

Today I went for a short run to try and clear out some cobwebs and get my head wrapped around this weekend’s crazed itinerary. I’m running a marathon in Long Beach tomorrow morning at 6 am, driving back to my place to shower and pack, heading to the airport to drop the rental car and fly up to Spokane, Washington. I don’t get in to GEG until around midnight.  The Sunday morning marathon is an hour from the airport, over in Coeur d’Alene, and it starts at 5 am. It didn’t seem worth a hotel for a couple of hours so I’m going to try and just power through.

With all that on my mind, I thought a short run would help reset things for me mentally. But I found I just kept thinking about tripping… I never fell flat on my face but there were more than a few trips and stumbles.  And I think it’s because in my head I was worried about tripping and falling. And anytime I thought of it, I thought to myself, “Stop thinking about it! It’s like choosing the form of Gozer–empty your head. Don’t even think about J Edgar Hoover…” But all I could think about was trying not to trip, which only increased my chances of tripping, which then made me even more nervous about possibly tripping.  And so on.  And so on.

All this is to say this is one of the myriad of reasons why I drink Diet Coke and why I do not drink coffee… Or really any hot drinks for that matter.

Fingers crossed I’ll be thinking other thoughts this weekend instead of straight up tripping.

Dr Ray Stantz: [after Ray thinks of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and it appears, stomping through New York City] I tried to think of the most harmless thing. Something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never, ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Nice thinking, Ray.

Ghostbusters (1984), Written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis