Research Participant

Earlier this week as I was sitting in the dark little basement room that is currently serving as my office space, I started to lose focus on the words I was reading. Tapping my foot restlessly and re-reading the same passage for about the fifth time, I finally decided that for the sake of both sanity and productivity I had better get up and get out of the building for a half hour or so.

I hadn’t made it to the local running stores yet, and since both of them are within easy walking distance of campus I decided to go check them out and pick up fliers about local races and running groups. It took me longer to get there than I anticipated (this may be because I discovered a very nice, two-story Border’s Books along the way and couldn’t help but go inside, just for a minute or two or twenty), and when I got there I found plenty of advertisements for races, but very little information on running groups. This was a little disappointing as I’d been counting on some sort of running club, like the ones I’d seen in Provo and Northern Virginia that met for runs on a daily basis, to help get me through the cold dark Michigan winter days when running at six in the morning is not an option.

But I did find a flier advertising a research study for runners aged 18-40 who ran at least 20 miles or four hours over the course of at least five days a week and got 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Since running and sleeping are the least likely parts of my weekly routine to get disrupted, I fit the qualifications quite nicely and, intrigued, I sent an email to the email address listed expressing my interest.

I’ve always thought it would be kind of fun to participate in a study. I love reading about human studies in magazines or newspapers or psychology textbooks. The people who participate in these studies are at once both representative of a large indistinct population of human beings, and part of a very select group of individuals by virtue of choosing to participate in the study. I find it intriguing and occasionally wonder how normal, everyday people get involved in such an activity.

Today I got an email confirmation with a more detailed description of the study and what I will be asked to do. I am surprisingly excited about this opportunity given that, unless I am lucky enough to be assigned to the control group, I will get to spend ten days either sleep-deprived, exercise-deprived, or both. None of these options would sound remotely appealing to me in any other situation, but because it’s part of a study I am looking forward to it with curious anticipation. How is it going to affect my mental and physical state of being? How will it affect everyone else in the study? Already I wonder what the conclusions will be and where it will be written up. Will there be a blurb in Runner’s World magazine that I can point to and say, “I was one of those people!”? (Since Runner’s World is based in Michigan, I think, I will be very disappointed in them if they don’t pick up on this research.)

And then there’s also this fulfilling feeling of sacrifice. I am going to undergo a period of absolute misery (I almost hope I don’t get assigned to the control group), but it will be for the sake of science. More importantly, I will be sacrificing myself for the purpose of contributing to the ever-increasing body of empirical evidence that running and getting a full night’s rest really do make you feel better, mentally and physically. I can smugly say, “Not only do I know this from personal experience, but they showed it. Scientifically. Using me.”

Oh yes. This should be fun.