Being busy (or business?) has kept me from the gym recently. Swam last Wednesday, was gone over the weekend and attempted to run on Sunday morning. Wow, that was hard. Lots of sweating and heart beating for only fifteen minutes of running. The next day went better, maybe because I had more food in my system.
Anyways, temporarily stopping for various reasons (like longer than intended naps) wrecks havoc on the body. What was going strong and well just stops; quickly too. No wonder “they” recommend you do not take more than one day off at a time; even a little bit of running avoids the potential of halting all progress.
Under no circumstances should you stop your routine for a few days and try to pick it up again; then do more. Maybe because it was such a beautiful day or maybe because I should have eaten more, but this morning I could not for the life of me run. There was a lot of breathing and sweating, but little running. All the people at the gym before Church we’re much older, so hopefully my struggle made their day.
Snow and ice made the past two work-outs more difficult than they should have been. Fear of getting stuck, then actually getting stuck made going to the gym more difficult. That was a poor excuse today, because it was warm enough to ride my bike.
Thankfully some nice neighbors helped extricate my car for me. Now the only excuse is laziness.
Friday night I went snow shoeing with some friends, it was a wonderful winter adventure. Who thought those shoes would work so well? Few things better than frozen lakes, stars, raptors, and off-trail hiking.
This morning I ran, longest of the training and longest that I’ve run since high school. Thirty minutes, plus a few minutes of warm up and cool down. Having good music really helped today. The increased time, even at a slightly slower pace, made it much harder. I’ve be-gudgedly purchased an ipod shuffle (really like the Sansa Clip, but no AAC support. Which is totally lame to not support the next-gen standard) today, so now I can run without fear of hitting the cable and dodging an ipod. Also, it will clip to my clothes and people will think I’m cool. Well, at-least it will clip to my clothes.
On Sunday I was going to wake up before Church and do the bike work. Then when I stayed up late on Saturday and woke up without enough time to do that, I was going to go right after church. Then I had lunch at this amazing place, Lou Henri’s (which I swear is only open every Sunday (before noon only) and Tuesday during even months). It was really awesome; cool staff and excellent/affordable food. So I was going to go after that, but my car got stuck in the snow and we had to get it out and it got stuck again in my parking lot.
In the end I never went, nor did I go on Monday. Not sure what “thing in the moment” (besides sleep, food, and being able to go to work the next day) I traded exactly, but there was an exchange for “what I want in the long run”.
Life would be pretty amazing if every time I came across (at work, with friends, going out, sitting around) an opportunity for trade, I didn’t.
But the last two days I’ve done my training. Definitely can feel getting stronger, especially the ol’ heart.