Thanks,
@Lady Celerity Lots of work still to go.
Programmes:
8 Weeks to 5K Day 25
Arms of Steel (chair edition) Day 24
Push Pull Legs Day 2 - did the exercises very slowly and spent the intervening two minutes doing calf raises, squats, butt kicks, and the like. Still, that rest period add over 30 minutes to the programme! Good thing I can get some other things done in that time. As it was, today was over 1½ hours and normally I'd take just over an hour (not including the running which I'd do earlier).
Challenges:
Indoor Cardio Day 7
Warrior Abs Day 2
Plank Hero Day 6
Dead Hang Day 16
Iron Core Day 6
Re-focus Day 6
Posture Day 6
Workouts for Runes of Northroy:
Orc
Goblin
Taekwondo training. When I rocked up today, the owner's wife had brought in a couple of doboks for me (she hadn't asked my size but had brought a 180cm). I had never bothered to get my black belt uniform at the other club, but the thing about starting at a new club is that you get your first dobok free and she'd brought me a black belt dobok. Part of me wanted to stay at the back wearing just a t-shirt and dobok pants, but now, with a uniform I'll have to be part of the proper belt order again. Oh well. Joint warm-up, then we partnered up, blade of foot to blade of foot, and had to try to touch each other's shoulder without getting touched. You had to do 5 push-ups if the other person got you three times or it was a draw. We had a few rounds of this, with new partners each round. I always did the push-ups even when I made three hits, just to keep my partner company. And it was only 5. Then we get into shorter lines and someone held a paddle for turnng kick. I kept missing the darned paddle because I'm too used to kicking high and expecting the paddle to be there, but with a greater focus on sparring, the paddle here is at sternum height. Must remember to aim for the paddle! Then on to axe kick. Using body shields, we then did increasingly difficult back side kicks, culminating in standing against the shield, jumping and spinning around backwards and kicking the shield. At least, that was what was supposed to happen! All this sparring sort of stuff is something I'm really going to have to work on. Finally, we did free sparring. The bloke I'd known at the other club and with whom I'd caught up again during NaNo, came today, and he called out, as part of an ongoing joke between us, "You're too poomsae!" Afterwards, we had a lovely chat about writing, books on writing, other authors, and one of the other blokes came along and joined the chat, so I got home about 30 minutes later than expected. Ah, I was being social!
Read for more than three hours. That's why I haven't got any writing done yet today!
I had one of those moments this morning when Deep and Meaningful Thoughts pop in. DMTs are scary for a simple soul like me! Occasionally, however, I think it's important to have some, even though every time I do, they show me up for being less than I like to think I am. I could use the nice general "we" and mean all of us, or just whoever thinks this applies to them, and suggest that it's also me, but is it really? But I shan't. I shan't be a coward here; I shall use the definite "I" and if this applies to you, feel free to nod and say, "Yep, I know where you're coming from, TN." So, here goes.
I like to think I am fairly honest. (Okay, I lied about the Tooth Fairy, but parents are
supposed to!) Sometimes I lie to myself and do it so convincingly, I don't recognise it for a lie. It's not even an excuse - it's the Real Thing. When I was doing Poomsae twice a week, and general Taekwondo twice a week, I said that I didn't want to do too much other stuff because I didn't want to be too tired for Poomsae. If I were tired for Taekwondo, that was acceptable, but I really wanted to be at my best for Poomsae so that was why I did little other training on Poomsae days. Okay, you might say, just as I did, that sounds reasonable. Yes, it does, doesn't it? But it's a lie. Really, it is! And that's what the DMT were telling me this morning.
You see, I wanted to keep some petrol in the tank for later in the day. That's not an unreasonable thing to do, I thought. I was thinking about tonight's training when these DMT intruded, thinking that perhaps I should take today's other training easy. But the DMT got right up into my face and yelled at me.
"TN, are you crazy? Don't you realise that if you work harder, sure, you might be tired today, maybe even still next week, but you'll get over that. You'll get stronger; you'll get fitter. Sure, if you've got something big and specific coming up, take it easy before then, but if you don't really know what you're going to have to do, you don't know how much you need in the tank. Deplete that bloody tank and learn how long it takes to refill! And get so that it refills quickly."
Embarrassing, really. But I can share my embarrassment here with you all. I know at the end of March, I'll be going on a couple of walks with my mother, of 11 and 12k Saturday and Sunday (and they'll be slower than I'd usually walk and that's always more exhausting - like strolling around an art gallery). Right, I won't go for a long hike the day before.
I realised that I need to work a bit harder, not necessarily more because of the whole time issue, but there's no need for me to keep anything back. I'll recover, and probably faster than I think I will. And if I don't recover as fast as I hope, I'll still be getting stronger and next time I
will recover faster. If I do the same, I'll stay the same. Perhaps this is why I'm not really seeing any improvement or change.
I've been living with that comfortable lie, saying that I've been doing well, but wondering why I'm not doing better. It's time to drop that lie and
do better.
Lies are comfortable to live with. Sometimes I (we!) call them "excuses", even perhaps "reasons", but they're still, deep down, just lies.
Aren't you glad I don't have Deep and Meaningful Thoughts often!