What a strange week it has been, energy-wise. After the high of the long-run last Saturday, I found myself in the pool on Monday morning dragging a weary body up and down the laps. I wasn't sorry to end early, and the run afterward was more of a struggle than a joy. And then I neglected to nap.
Tuesday morning's spin class also started slowly. I spent the first ten minutes wondering how I was going to make it through class. Luckily, the class was well-led by the instructor and I soon forgot myself and got into the rhythm and lost track of time. Had I been watching the clock, it would have been agony, but instead I pushed myself good and hard and felt pretty good by the end. Not exactly filled with elation, but better than I'd imagined feeling after those first ten minutes. I couldn't go to yoga that afternoon due to my husband's work schedule. I didn't find myself overly saddened by the thought.
Wednesday morning I woke up and stared out the window at a snowy winter wonderland. The snow was still falling. I strapped the yaktraks onto my shoes, and my friend and I waded out through the drifts. It was too deep run on the sidewalks, but the streets were quiet. The side streets we usually take in a loop were not cleared, but we found one that ran perpendicular that was totally clear. The plough had already been up and down this street. (It was the same street that was clear on the last deeply snowy run we had, so we're wondering who the heck lives on that street--MPP? Mayor? Snowplough company owner? It is not a busy street that would need to be ploughed for any practical reason I can imagine. Not one car went down this street on our entire run. But another snowplough did!). Anyway, it was a shorter distance than we usually go, but it was not easy running, even on the cleared street. We felt like heroes just for getting out. When I got home, I grabbed a shovel and cleared our walk--a futile task, as the snow was still falling heavily, but a good extra strength work-out. I'd arranged to go to yoga that evening, and even though I didn't feel like it at all, especially after eating baked black beans and cabbage salad (what was I thinking???), I went because the complicated arrangements had been made, and it would have been a terrible pity to waste them. It was a difficult class, perhaps because I have been going to the yang-ying stretching classes and the vinyasa classes instead of the straight-up Moksha series classes ... or perhaps because I hadn't hydrated and eaten properly ... or perhaps because the room was unusually humid and hot ... or perhaps because I was plumb tired out ... Who knows. All I knew was that I needed to take a break at a moment in the series when I usually do not. So I took a break. I spent class reflecting on how this triathlon goal is preventing me from relaxing and enjoying some of the elements in my life. It's hard to let go when I know I have another scheduled work-out waiting for me early the next morning. I'm not being very spontaneous and fun these days.
Thursday morning I got to sleep in (til 7:15!!!), so my husband could go to yoga. Together, we went to the kundalini yoga class last night, where I again found myself being challenged to let go and push past my anxiety. What am I anxious about? Why am I holding back? The teacher (who is also a good friend) kept asking those questions of the class as we pushed through the last and quite challenging kriya, which also happens to be one of my very least favourite kriyas--the woodchopper. "I'm anxious about being too tired to go swimming tomorrow," I answered her in my head. "I'm anxious that I'm going to be too sore to go for my long run on Saturday. I'm afraid of hurting myself. I'm afraid of losing control." But as she urged us to push past whatever we were holding back, my thoughts started shifting. "That's tomorrow. What if I never get to tomorrow and I'm spending all of today worrying about making tomorrow easier?"
And it turned out that tomorrow was fine with the decision to let go and push to a point of exhaustion. This morning, my friend and I made it to the early swim (she was also at the kundalini class, and she was also worried about not being able to lift her arms over her head!). I swam for the full hour, and got stronger and faster as the minutes ticked by. This morning, I didn't count lengths, just swam and let my mind go. It was wonderful. I'm not going to bother counting lengths again. I know roughly how far I go in an hour--2k--and I don't need to know more than that. It was thrilling to feel my body cutting through the water, and find a strong rhythm of stroke and breath. It reminded me that yoga is movement with breath. So is swimming, powerfully so.
I've decided to relax about tomorrow's run, and perhaps go shorter than originally planned, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 12k. I feel certain I can finish the half-marathon with the training I've got under my belt already. And there is still a lot of snow on the ground. And my husband is working. And I have so many errands to run, and children's activities to accomodate that it seems foolish not to relax and do what I can and what makes sense, rather than adding stress to a long Saturday by pushing too hard toward one goal.
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