FARTLEK
Diva Plavalaguna performing “Diva Dance” in the movie “The Fifth Element" (1997) © Buena Vista
BLITZ 5
The pandemic forced me to run mostly alone, so I forbade myself from using headphones at night. Silencing the traffic is bad enough, and darkness hides the city’s hazards too well. The other night, I made an exception and added extra oomph to my fartlek with The Fifth Element’s film score. The operatic Diva Dance never fails to energize me. Thus, reversing, what my psychoanalyst calls, my subconscious death wish with healthy exercise.
Although a Swedish term, fartlek isn’t naughty and doesn’t refer to gastroenterological issues. It means speed play and was developed by Swedish track and field athlete Gösta Holmér in 1930 while coaching his downtrodden national cross-country team. The Olympian decathlon champ used a playful method to increase aerobic capacity and build endurance with informal speed intervals. Without complicated tables, rigid distances, and stopwatches, Gösta’s athletes used landmarks and terrain creatively to challenge their routines. It works just as well in elk-speckled fjords as in rat-infested New York City. You jog to the Christmas-decorated stoop, sprint to the supermarket, half-speed through the underpass, total effort up the hill, and so on.
Because the term itself is rather fun to say, I repeated it in my head like a mantra while the hysterical voice of Diva Dance edged me on. Absorbed in my road movie, I didn't hear the leaf blower—a national obsession—an elderly gentleman used to whip maple foliage into a frenzy. I grand jetéd through the rusty cloud of leaves. Unsurprisingly the graceful fantasy I had of my performance did not match reality. The rotten shrubbery stuck to my face. I slipped and was almost impaled by a low wrought iron fence circling an innocent cherry tree.
I regained my step and slowed my fart when I saw Jadyn's orange parka between two garbage cans. Jadyn is a cheeky teenager with Down Syndrome who lurks in the area for prey for his spontaneous, wholehearted hugs. I’m usually game for his random acts of affection, but after my slip, I wasn’t looking forward to adolescent peanut butter breath. I changed to the other side of the street.
There a man in a hoodie emerged from the shadows. I geared up for my fart to overtake him. The futuristic Diva Plavalaguna (voiced by soprano Inva Mula) reached dizzying octaves when the man suddenly swerved around and pushed me. I landed on my butt, headphones rolling from my ears.
“F-word!” the man shouted, dancing like a boxer.
Fartlek, I moaned.
“Don't call the cops, F- word!”
I didn't intend to.
“You OK, girl? F-word! I didn't F-word hear you coming!”
I wiped my hands on my leggings. Everything was intact.
“Oh man, I heard this nasty panting creeping up on me. F-word!”
There was not much I could do about my need for oxygen, I said, admittedly offended by the description of my respiratory practice.
“You could have said something, F-word."
Like what? Hi there, lonely man in a hoodie, exercising, non-threatening female coming through?
“Coming through, or they would have done the job.” The hooded man reached out his hand and pulled me up. “You're not going to the F-word cops now?"
No, I wouldn’t go to the Fartlek cops.
“I'm out on parole. Can’t F-word up.”
I had no intention of doing that.
“Every time someone comes up from behind,” he glanced around, his head jangling like a dashboard doll. “F-word! It’s like, you have to–F-word gerund–watch your back, you know?”
Now I knew, I said. And added my athletic F-word.
Our eyes met, and we yelled our respective F-words out again in relief. Both are onomatopoeic, versatile, and satisfying.
“What’s that you’re saying?” he asked.
Fartlek, it’s the Swedish for the F-word, I said.
He nodded. I held my hand for a fist bump, although that’s hardly an appropriate gesture for a white woman to offer to a Black man. He nudged it anyway.
“Swedish, huh?”
On my way home, I put the earplugs in my pocket and listened to my breathing. The man was right; I wheezed like an old creep. Fartlek!
December 2021
