Whew, I survived the first week of classes ( hat #2), a full week of weights for training ( hat #3), and collected all my articles that have been assigned for the upcoming week in the class I'm taking (hat #4), and managed to be at home and present mentally while my kids and husband were awake (yes....hat #1). This is apparently, how my life is going to be for at least the next 5 years. When my kids start back at school next week, I'll have to carve myself up into a few more slices. The thing is, though, that wearing any one of these hats to the exclusion of the others, induces great instability in the wearer (me).
I know this from experience. I test this theory regularly, and it always holds up. This week, I was able to wear each hat for just enough time, but it was tough. In the past year, I've bagged going to the gym for a few days, in favor of getting "just a few more things done" until the days became weeks and soon I had packed on quite a bit on extra insulation. Every day this week I forced myself put down my work for an hour and got a workout in, I was very glad I did. For me, exercising "resets" my internal balance. I am much more productive and less anxious for the rest of the day.
This summer I have worked hard to get rid of the excess baggage. I had an injury at the start of the summer which essentially scared me straight. I was able to rehab on my own, rediscover my love of distance swimming, develop a no nonsense nutrition strategy, drop half the total weight I need to get rid of, and put alot of miles on my bike. Fantastic! I went for a fast ( for me) 20 miler on Friday that seemed to be over way too soon. I'm finally ready to start "training".....in September. Normally, I would expect to be in this phase, say, in April, leaving the rest of the summer to build volume and intensity, and finish with sport specific training, so that by the time regular ice season starts, I'm ready to work hard. Only, for me, it never seems to work that way. One thing or another gets in the way and only 1 year out of 5 was I really "ready" for the ice in September.
Rather than panic, I'm now old enough to accept my limitations, and realize that I need to keep myself in fairly good
overall shape, since I can no longer do the running, low walking, squatting, and low dry skating I used to do. I can, however, increase my aerobic fitness, my flexibility, my overall strength, using the sports I can still do, with the time I have (about 5-7 hrs a week) so that I can continue skating, and continue to enjoy it. Short track competition is probably a thing of the past for me, but Long Track beckons, and THAT ice doesn't start until mid December.....
I ran the blog through Wordle ( http://www.wordle.com/) and this is the word cloud that emerged. Pretty neat huh? Right now my head resembles this cloud, any number of things swirling around, certain topics rise to the top. It is actually therapeutic to view this. I wonder what it will look like at the end of the skating season?