Taking a Day Off

I've been writing about health care and politics for the last week.  These are things that obviously matter to me.  They are also things that, while I've been thinking about them this year, haven't been my focus.  My total and complete attention this entire year has been on Ironman training and racing.  Now that I've finished my life's dream, I've recalibrated my physical activity focus.  I'm not training for an ironman, or any other major endurance event.  I do have a half ironman coming up in four weeks, and will probably do a couple more halves next year.  After ten years of ironman training and racing, half ironman's aren't that daunting.  It's not like I won't be working our or training.  Far from it!

I'm sixty years old, and some days I feel like it.  My coach has correctly encouraged me to focus on building strength.  As a geriatrician and athlete, I know the importance of focusing on muscle strengthening as we age.  I've waited a little too long to start, hoping that my ironman training would naturally provide some of this.  But, I know that it's finally time.  Over the past couple of weeks, I've begun to develop some strength training.  Nothing fancy, which is the point.  I've been doing push ups regularly.  Yesterday, over the course of about 10 minutes, I did nearly 100 push ups.  I started with thirty straight.  Two weeks ago, ten in a row was a lot.  Progress.  I've been doing air squats.  Two days ago, I did a "fun" workout that my coach gave me.  Alternating running 1/2 a mile with either pushups and lunges or air squats.  This 40-45 minute workout ultimately included 150 air squats, 60 push ups and 60 lunges.  Progress.

I was going to run today.  I had, in my head, the idea of running 11-12 hilly miles.  I was really tired last night, and actually went to bed around 8pm.  I didn't get out of bed this morning until nearly 8 am.  My body felt ok, just a little general soreness, and a little general fatigue.  If I was training for another ironman, today would be a perfect day to go out and run.  It would be a perfect day for acclimating my body to training with fatigue.  But I'm done with Ironman.  I'm trying to get stronger and healthier.  So, today is a perfect day to rest.

The challenge of resting, especially at sixty years of age, is to keep the body moving and the blood flowing.  I find that if I just stay sedentary all day, it doesn't serve well.  So, I'll have to figure out how to keep moving today, without putting unnecessary stress on my body.  There's also the matter of mental stress.  I know that is something that we all tend to ignore and underestimate.  Similar to moving around all day, keeping my mind limber without stressing it, is also important.  Fortunately, I have some fun things to work on, and I have a great day of college football to enjoy.  It's a perfect day to take off!