Balancing Priorities: Sport and Socializing

Joy here...Well, I've been travelling again, and I've been faced with working out less and being frustrated with myself as a result.  And no matter how many times I throw my hands up in the air and blame my lack of focus and dedication to my workouts on a straightforward lack of time or on scheduling and travelling woes, I can't escape the sinking feeling that really the flaws are mine and mine alone.

Another day, another airport...

And I hate that feeling.

I hate feeling like my failures to appropriately organize and prioritize my time so that I can hit my workouts as planned and be prepared for the next two races (gulp!) that I've signed up for are a reflection of my failings as a person.  But no matter how much I hate feeling like a failure and how much I hate having to face the fact that it's not the big, bad world's fault that I can't seem to be organized enough to work out as planned, I can't escape the fact of my own failings forever.

So I've had to do some tough love with myself lately.

I've had to face the fact that while other people are able to prioritize their workouts, and let other things slide, when it comes to balancing socializing with sport, I choose socializing over sport every time.  You see, I remember when I was in Ottawa, and The Man and I were heading out with some of our running friends for dinner.  One of the girls was late for dinner, and as she showed up - flushed and breathless - she said, "Oh, I'm sorry to be late, I had to fit in my run before coming."  It was no big deal, and we had a great dinner.  But I thought about that, and I think in a similar situation where I had a scheduled run and a dinner planned, I would automatically choose to skip the run and be on time for dinner.  It was a revelation to me to realize that not everyone would make the same choice.  And so I began to see my failures to hit my workouts as a series of choices that I had made, not some result of inevitable scheduling conflicts.

A Caesar and Poutine...my first dinner back in Canada!

You see, I just got back from nearly 2 weeks in Canada; I was there for meetings but had a chance to visit with friends and family as well.  And while I was there, I predictably worked out basically not at all and am now back in Kuala Lumpur with the familiar sinking feeling of coming back from a loss of fitness.  I will have to claw and climb my way out of the hole that I have dug for myself.

And how did I did this hole?

Easily.

Out for my own birthday dinner (cake over a run workout
any day!!)

I chose to visit with friends and family over working out.  Instead of balancing my time and being able to both visit AND work out, I crammed any unscheduled time with visiting.  I found myself going from one friend's house to then heading out to dinner with other friends.  When I had a free moment on my first day back, I could have headed out for a run to loosen up my legs after the plane, but I went to a friend's house for a surprise coffee with her instead. I also found myself rushing home from a meeting to be able to sneak in an afternoon at the zoo with my nephew.  Instead of running early in the morning, I took the wee pre-dawn hours as an opportunity to have a cup of coffee with my sister.  Rather than foregoing the glass of wine with dinner so that I could run afterwards, I relaxed into my evening with my dad and had both wine AND dessert, making any post-dinner workout impossible.  Instead of blocking off time to catch up on workouts, I blocked off time to have some of my high school girlfriends over for brunch.  Rather than taking an afternoon run, I headed to my brother's office to participate in the surprise birthday cake for his 35th birthday.  Or when I could have rushed home from a meeting to sneak in a workout before packing and getting ready for the plane, I rushed over to a friend's house to see her and her 9 month old son one more time before leaving the country.  In each and every instance, I chose socializing over hitting my run workouts.  And the strange thing about all this is that while I recognize in that my utter and complete failure to adequately manage my time and meet my workout goals and responsibilities, I am convinced that I would do the same thing in the same circumstance again.  Even in seeing my culpability here, I wouldn't do anything different.

Hanging out with the nephew, a peacock feather,
and a penguin at the zoo.

While for some people working out is in and of itself a good to be sought, a thing to be protected, and something to be prioritized, I have to admit that socializing comes first for me, and my workouts are always best if they are also social.  As much as I enjoy the meditative feeling of running by myself, I enjoy socializing with others more, so if I'm able to combine my sport with others - like in 2012, the summer of the cycling sisterhood, or 2010 when Nomi and I first learned to run and ran our first ever half marathons - then I'll be a-okay, but if left to myself I'm not entirely sure that I'll always carve out the appropriate time for sport.

Now that I've identified the root of my failing here, I'm not 100% sure what the implications are for my sporting goals - a 10km race in November and another 10km race in December - but I at least have taken a moment to identify and interrogate my own motivations so that I don't always just beat myself up for being a failure when it comes to my workouts.

Wish me luck...and better than that...say you'll come out for a run with me!

Over and out,
Joy

First Bike Ride in a Loooooong Time

Joy here...So at the end of August last summer (2012) I raced in the Ontario provincial Time Trial championships on my bike - placing 6th in my category - and I went into the winter off season thinking that I'd build up fitness and form on my bike and start this new season (2013) with monster cyclist legs like tree trunks, lungs that could inflate a hot air balloon, and mad skills to make people wonder whether or not I was doping.

The cyclist grandson who gets kidnapped in
the fabulous movie The Triplets of Belleville would have
nothing on my awesome cycling physique.

But to misquote Ursula the sea witch from The Little Mermaid:  things were NOT working out according to my ultimate design (see this summary blog post from May if you're curious as to what went wrong).

As I put my plan of becoming a superfit bike racer on the backburner and dusted off my running shoes to get some running fitness back, I just didn't prioritize getting out there on the bike.

The result of that is that I went out for one bike ride in Canada before leaving for Malaysia, and I've done one bike ride since arriving.

But this morning changed all that.

I dusted off my lycra, febreezed my helmet, and wiped off my shoes to get ready to head out the door to ride up a hill that is a favourite amongst Kuala Lumpur cyclists.

I'm not going to lie to you, I was a bit nervous about this decision to hop on a bike and commence climbing up consistently for about an hour, with parts of the climb reaching an incline of 9%.  But I figured that I owed it to myself and my awesome bike to give it a try.

So try is what I did.

The blue sky peeking out, the tall grass, and the trees
beyond, as The Man pauses beside the road
marker that reads "K. Lumpur 38."

But as Yoda says:  "Do or do not. There is no try."  Today, mighty Yoda, I did it!

The morning was around 24C and very humid; soon we started riding our bikes up the climb, with the lush tropical jungle all around us - rising up over the cliffs to our right and dropping off into the ravines to our left - and the blue sky peeking out from watercolour white clouds as the early morning mists began to dissipate across the canopy.  Thick leaves drooped down from high trees, and I felt like I was on the set of Jurassic Park, only this setting is real, full of the smells and sounds of a city built in amidst the jungle.

The first part of the climb wasn't too steep, and I wasn't feeling taxed.  I had to pee like crazy, but other than that, I wasn't uncomfortable.  About 3kms in, my bladder was about to explode, so I parked my bike off to the side, wandered into the jungle, and within about 2meters I couldn't see the road anymore due to the lush greenery.  I dropped my cycling drawers and did the deed, hoping against hope that no snakes would see my big, white moon as a target.

The overpass marking the end of the climb.  See all
the cyclists gathered around?

After emerging unscathed and much relieved, we carried on with our ride, the gradient increasing ever steadily.  When I stopped concentrating on my rhythmic breathing and looked around me, the sights were truly awe inspiring.  This city has some of the most majestic scenery that you could ever hope to see, with old jungle growing tall and proud against red hills and granite cliffs. It makes you feel like you should have David Attenborough narrating in the background.

The climb pitches up steeply just before the end, but then rolls nicely to the finish, which is marked by an overpass; gathered beneath the overpass are many Sunday cyclists, their bikes leaning to the side, their bodies showing the relaxation of achieving their cycling goal for the day.  And as I got within sight of them--dzzzzzzt--I shifted from my easy gear to my big ring and pedalled powerfully towards them, slowing just before dipping down the hill on the other side.

Jurassic Park (you know, minus the dinosaurs)

I turned around and began the switchbacking, winding road down from the peak.  Imagine surfing through an aqua barrel wave, surrounded by an arch of teal water over your head as your board slices almost silently forward through this magical pocket.  Now imagine it faster.  Now imagine that instead of a barrel of water, you're rip-roaring on your bike as green, tropical foliage drapes over you as you hug the side of the road.  If you've imagined that right, then you've probably captured a fraction of the fun I had as I tore down from the top of the climb.

So you know what?  I think I'm gonna do that again.

Over and out,
Joy

Today's Ride Stats:
Rode uphill for 14.88kms for a total elevation increase 484m (about half the total elevation gain in Gatineau Park), and I averaged 15.2km/hr, barely breaking a sweat!  Then I turned around and rip roared down the hill, around the twisty turns, and arrived safely and soundly at the car!

Life is a Highway

Joy here...I really love the metaphor that life is a highway.

I remember some 20 years ago when I was in high school and my friends and I would raise our arms, clapping along (me probably slightly off-beat) and blurting out the lyrics at the top of our lungs (me probably very off-tune) with Tom Cochrane.

But somehow like some guy whose glory days were back in the halls of his high school as he reigned supreme on some varsity team and dated some cheerleader, his life never reaching that pinnacle again, I seem to have forgotten the forward-motion implied in the life is a highway metaphor.

Vintage Joy:  The Highschool Years

You see, I never was a super athlete with all sorts of glory days to fall back on.  But as I grapple with feeling a sense of fitness loss right now, I can't help but think of things in terms of "recapturing" or "getting back" former levels of fitness rather than just an onward trajectory through life.  It's as though on some level I'm thinking well, I used to be fit, so I just need to get back to that fit place.  When, in fact, that's a rather bizarre way to think about life.

If life is a highway, then the metaphor would suggest that as I trundle along, there'll be speed traps, wrong exits, hills, valleys, passing lanes, and toll booths that I will go through all before the day that I close my eyes for good (which is hopefully a long way off).  But thinking about "recapturing" or "getting back" something from the past implies a kind of weird circularity to this highway...more like contrived race track that just goes around and around and around...

Who knows what lies beyond the dark and twisty turns of
life's highway?

And since I truly believe that sport is a metaphor for life, and the lessons it can teach go way beyond how far you might run, how fast you might be, or how your race went.  So as I grapple with my fitness not being exactly where I'd like it to be in the here and now, I'm going to remind myself to resist the temptation of thinking about my past fitness.

Life is a highway, and I might be in the slow lane now, but watch out...I like to go fast!

So if I've not really hit all my run workouts as I would have liked since returning from Australia, well, I'm just going to keep my eyes on the horizon before me as the highway stretches onward!

Over and out,
Joy

PS - Here are my run stats for the last week since our return:
Aug 28: Ran for a total of 18:56 for a distance of 3.09km with an avg. pace of 6:07min/km.
Aug 29: Ran for a total of 15:02 for a distance of 2.5km with an avg. pace of 6:01min/km.
Aug 31: Ran for a total of 30:00 for a distance of 5.1km with an avg. pace of 5:53min/km.
Sept 2: Ran for a total of 20:00 for a distance of 3.2km with an avg. pace of 6:15min/km.
Sept 4: Ran easy for 20 minutes (didn't wear Garmin, so lacking full data)
Sept 5: Ran for a total of 15:17 for a distance of 2.5km with an avg. pace of 6:07min/km.