A sudden realization

Although I haven't been blogging about it, I've been getting lots of training in during my time off. It's been a lot of fun, I pretty much follow my training schedule in the morning but then in the afternoons do whatever I feel like doing. It's been great, I could definitely live like this :)

Tuesday was weights and I upped the weights on all the moves because it was time. I did them but a couple of muscles actually went to total failure so it was a good workout. Wednesday morning I went swimming and I had every intention of swimming 4000 m. I've never swam that far and I decided it was time to try. By the time I got to 2000 m my pecs and my lats were sore and I could feel the pull in the triceps and biceps. I wisely decided that the weight training Tuesday made swimming 4000 m impossible. That's okay. I stopped at 2000 m and left the pool. By last night I was sore. My biceps and pecs were just killing me. I guess between the weights and the swimming I really gave them a workout. So when I got up this morning I was still a little sore and (wisely) decided to take a rest day.

My cockatiel has been out of seed for 2 days and I just keep forgetting to pick it up. Since we have a feed store 2 blocks away I decided to walk up this morning and get her some. It's a beautiful morning and a walk in the sunshine is always nice. As I'm walking I'm noticing things in the neighborhood that you don't from a car. I thought to myself, 'when I come through here I'm always moving, either in a car, on a bike, or running.' This thought was immediately followed by 'geez, I used to walk all the time for exercise.' Which was immediately followed by, 'there was a time when this 20 minute stroll was my exercise for the day.'

My point here, and I do have one, is how far I've come. There was a time when walking 1 mile took me 30 minutes and it was all I could handle. I vividly remember walking from my house to the park, around the park and home again. That was 1 mile and it would take me a full 30 minutes. I remember when it started to take me only 20. I remember when I added another loop and was doing 2 miles in 45 minutes. I remember how tired I was and how proud I was of myself.

I remember when I started running. I thought I was going to die. I would run for 30 seconds then walk for 2 minutes. I kept it up and eventually I could run for 2 minutes and walk for 30 seconds. To this day I fall back into that run/walk pattern when things are tough.

I remember when I got my mountain bike. I started riding it a couple of days a week. Where I lived there was the 7 hills of Kualoa. Right out from my house these small hills began. My first ride was brutal. I could only do 2 hills. By the time I got home my legs were shaking and I could hardly walk. But I kept at it and eventually I could log 30 miles on my mountain bike without thinking twice about it.

Finally I added in the swimming. I lived right on the ocean and had this small thought at the back of my head to do a triathlon. So I started swimming. At first I couldn't swim 10 strokes without being out of breath. But I kept it up and eventually I was swimming, in the ocean, for 30-40 minutes at a time. When I moved to the pool it became another story. But I persisted and soon was swimming like a fish.

I was thinking about all these things as I walked. I'm still not speedy in any of these disciplines but I keep at it and who really knows how far I can go. You have no idea how glad I am I took that first walk that day. How glad I am I kept at it. How glad I am that I get discouraged but I keep at it. Keep doing it and eventually it will get easier.

So ends the deep philosophical thinking for today.