Category: goals

I’m not much of a Sabbath person in general — not being one of the People of the Book and all.

But, I did rest physically today. I’d worked out well all last week. I did three days of good solid swimming interspersed with three days of kickin’ weight training. I planned to rest today.

Last winter I was getting back into swimming while rehabbing knee surgery. My physical therapist had cautioned me that while I was antsy as hell to get moving, I had been through some relatively major surgery. Doing my therapy and being faithful with it was great, certainly. But when I started hitting the pool again, I was cautioned to work up and refrain from swimming on consecutive days until I got my strength back.

I followed medical advice better than I usually do after the surgery. It was an elective procedure¹ and I figured with all the pain in the ass that I went through to get it done, I was damned if I was gonna risk a graft failure from breaking Rule One. Know what, it really did take awhile for me to get my strength back.

I’m not rehabbing anything now, which is nice. Even so, I’m taking the lesson I learned about the importance of appropriate rest to heart. I say “appropriate rest” because there’s a line between getting enough of a workout, driving yourself into the ground, or wimping out then claiming virtue for “getting enough rest”. In my case, I’m a writer. I sit on my butt all day long. My leisure activities are nearly as sedentary. I’ve spent the time today when I wasn’t working knitting. (Almost done on a kickin’ sweater with mjollnirs! Elizabeth Zimmerman’s seamless yoke sweater is da bomb!)

I’ve been feeling antsy. You know you get when you get into a project and excited about it. Thing is, appropriate rest is part of keeping the body healthy. I’m feeling a bit like a racehorse, pawing at the ground, tossing my head, ready to go! go! go!

Which is not a bad way to start the week, I think.

¹ You can live fine without your anterior cruciate ligament. You just lose some stability under physical stress.

There’s something just innately satisfying about swimming a mile. Well, I swam an 1800, so that’s slightly over a mile. Took me 48 minutes and change.  No, I am not a fast swimmer!  For swims like these, I’m grateful for my Otterbox (waterproof casing for an iPod).  I was listening to Jim Dale’s reading of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I wish there were some marathon open water swims where I live. You’d think with all the lakes around… I mean hell, Lynne Cox, that crazy¹ woman who swam in the Antarctic spent her early childhood in Manchester, NH!

I’m not in the least interested in participating in a triathlon, though.  I remember bitching last winter and swearing I was gonna try to start an open water swim event.   Looks like to get such a thing going, I may have to do just that.  Feh.   Maybe I could talk to the Master’s team over at my pool and see if there’s something doing I didn’t know about.

I got some good news.  I’ve got a month more on my gym membership than I thought I did.  Gives me another month to dig up the money to continue it.  I haven’t been doing worth a damn on the weights — at least getting my butt to the gym.   For some reason, I’m more likely to stumble outside my bedroom first thing in the morning, and take 20 minutes six days a week to do an upper or lower body workout than I will go to the gym to do a full body workout three times a week.  I suppose I shouldn’t sweat it.  My body doesn’t care if I lift heavy stuff in a gym or in my home as long as heavy stuff gets lifted!

But, I am swimming, which is also important.  Lately I’ve been swimming on the days I’m not teaching computer classes.  Gets me out of the house on days I don’t have to work away from my writin’ chair, and ensures I do something besides sit in my writin’ chair all day.

I have to finish outlining a document for a client today and study for a class in MS Access I’m teaching tomorrow.

¹I use the word “crazy” with the upmost respect. I love to swim and all, but that woman is hard core!

Swimmers, here’s a little trick:

Get thee some Mane ‘ n Tail (it used to be marketed as shampoo and conditioner for horses, but people use it with good results, too), wet down your hair with non-chlorinated water, put a little Mane ‘n Tail on your hair and work it through, then put on your bathing cap and do your workout. Afterwards, wash and style as usual.

Your hair will be all soft and shiny.

Don’t use too much or your cap will slide off and you’ll be leaving a trail of conditioner scum and make no friends at all in the pool.

But it really is a good treatment for hair abused by chlorinated pools.

I’ve been reviewing my goals for this month.  I’m quite on track.  It’s hard for me, sometimes, to let go of the big picture and concentrate on the day.    Now don’t get me wrong.  The big picture is crucially important.  I refer to it each time I plan my month.   But when I’m planning a week or a day, I’ll look at my goals for the month or the week rather than the year.  I try never to look more than one step up timewise to keep myself from getting overwhelmed.  I try to look at my yearly goals only 12 times a month after I made them.  I know it sounds funny, but I think this is going to work.  Making sure your dailyness is leading you where you want to go, it’s all good.

I’ve always been lousy at “slow-n-steady”.  I’m trying to teach myself this, as if I do a little slow and steady and do accomplish everything I plan to for the year, I’ll have had a happy, productive and balanced year!

Well, I did manage to hit the pool every weekday this week since I’ve decided to get stern with myself about the exercise.

I live in a relatively small town, but it was a bit of a surprise this morning to share a lane with my family doctor. I’m not sure if he recognized me¹. I never would have pegged him as a swimmer. He seems more the runner type, but I suppose cross-training ain’t all that unusual.

I’m trying to decide if I should just stick to my original goal of swimming 900 yards every weekday this month, or if I should up the yardage. Since my original fitness goal was to swim at least four miles this month, I think I’m gonna just stick with the 900 yards deal. At 4500 yards a week, I’ll have swum considerably more than miles by the end of the month.

I’m noticing a problem I have with getting to goals, and I need to address it. I’ll go all hard core on a goal then burn out, rather than go slow and steady — looking to the long term. It’s why my goals for this year were relatively modest. I’m having to restrain myself from going hammer and tongs at the things that interest me. I have a good plan for the year and need to stick to the “slow and steady” version if I want to ensure I get there.  I’m glad I wrote everything down, let me tell you.  Having the original goal written down as a referent makes it a lot easier to say, “Woah, slow down there, Hoss.  You’ll get there if you stick to it slow and steady.”  I’m already finding great value in having that yearly goal, then breaking it down by month, week and day!

It’s so easy to get sidetracked.  As I was swimming, I was trying to plan how to get my weights workout in. I started all these plans about spending hours in the gym, blah, blah, blah. As I was coming home, I started laughing at myself. Just sticking to the original plan will be fine. I don’t need to go harder. It’s even possible that I shouldn’t go harder.  Accomplishing exactly what I set out to do for the year will be a good year enjoyed and well-spent.

¹One does not chat in a swimming lane at 5:30 in the morning.