About This Blog

As time permits, in-depth musings on myriad subjects will be posted. Abbreviated adages will be announced via Twitter.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

More

"I ran. I ran until my legs pumped battery acid. And then I ran some more."

The above is from Fight Club. Not the book by Chuck Palahniuk—although many attribute it to him—but the screenplay of the film, which, incidentally, was written by Jim Uhls.

Regardless of who wrote the line, it's a memorable & oft-quoted one, especially by those in the running and/or triathlon community, and, until tonight, I had not been one to invoke such sentiments. But now I am.

Today was an exhausting day on all fronts. The morning and bulk of the afternoon was spent writing as part of Abydos (formerly known as NJWPT, or New Jersey Writing Project Texas) training, where I wrote about all series of subjects for close to seven hours with little reprieve—and I loved it, in spite of my preconceived notions—and then headed to the track at Clemens for a track workout.

On tap was 4x400-meter efforts, with a 200-meter active recovery thrown in. After the 4x400 (from lane 8) warm-up, it was straight into the effort, which went fairly well for the first three. I was hitting negative splits but then hit  wall of sorts. Perhaps the heat, perhaps the humidity, perhaps the whole of the day just finally got to me, and each 400 began to have time added to it. Worst yet, I found myself walking nearly half of the active recovery. But I persevered and managed to shave a precious second off of my final 400. Even if it wasn't faster than the first 400, it was still rewarding to see somewhat of a drop in time. And I still managed to eek out another 4x400 cool-down from lane 8.

On the (short—Clemens is, like, maybe a mile from the house) bike ride back home, and the subsequent ride up to the kid's daycare, I found myself somewhat recovered. Yeah, I was exhausted, physically & mentally, but I felt in a fashion not recognized for some time, now, that I was ready for more. If more was physical activity, it wouldn't be fast or pretty, but it would be tackled. If more was something mental—like, say, a blog or some other form of writing—well, you see how that's going.

In spite of my feelings of invincibility, I'm going to go a tad easy on me tomorrow. I'll rise at the normal time to walk the dog, but I'll not do more afterwards, nor will I ride to the Abydos training. Instead, I'll take the car and head up to New Braunfels for a swim. Maybe do some core work after that, but we'll see how things go. In any event, I'm getting back into punishing myself and asking, "Please sir, may I have some more?"

And I like it. A lot.

Thanks for reading.