In which contentment is rewarded

I was pleased with how last week ended. I didn't exercise on Christmas, so Saturday ended up being a significant exercise day, but in general my "do a serious workout each weekday" policy went reasonably well. The second swim of the week involved VERY choppy water, so I ended up 25 meters shy of my swim goal for the week, but I'm not too worked up about it.

Yesterday, I did a 10K run. Today was a work day, but things went off the rails early on. I got called in earlier than expected, which killed my stretches and strength training for the day. I noticed a bad wobble on the rear wheel of my bike; upon getting back home, I determined that it's not really safe to ride it unless necessary, so that killed any hope of going to my usual swim spot. But a couple weeks ago, I met a young man who said he sometimes went swimming in the river close to where I live. Why not?

I put on my wetsuit, tossed my gloves and booties and hood into my swim float/backpack, and walked there. I felt very trepidatious as I put on my booties. Walking into the sea, I looked back several times. The wind was strong, the shore was rocky, the waves were high; was I making a mistake? I planned to swim between two navigational buoys, going with the wind, and deciding when I got to the second whether or not to try to swim against the wind for a return trip. I started to turn back several times.

In the end, I swam between them. Only once; it turns out that they're almost exactly 200 meters apart. I kept clear of both of them, because both appeared quite rusty. I'm still not sure if what I did was foolhardy or not. I doubt that swimming in the other direction would have yielded meaningful results; the wind and waves were quite strong. But, if nothing else, it's good to know that there is a viable swimming option a short stroll away. Oh, and I jogged home at the end of it all.

At the end of the swim, I checked my distance. I told myself "I have no idea how far that was; heck, I'll be happy if it was 200 meters". Well, it was more like 450, between the trip between the two buoys and the trips from and to shore. I've also accepted that, while I could push myself and do my strength training this afternoon, it would be better just to let it go for the day. 6 times a week is pushing things enough; there's no call to do 2 within 16 hours or so of one another. I'll just accept the red splotch on my day, and tomorrow I'll aim to do better. And, hopefully, this week will include a long, long swim, on the order of 1.5 kilometers. 7 trips between those 2 buoys would do nicely, with the shore trips tossed in; with a swim of that length, I don't much mind how slow it is. I also need to get my bike fixed; I'll probably end up using my stationary bike to reach 100 km this week.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again

Swim days are days of accomplishment.

The week before last was my first week of trying for a cumulative half ironman distance each week, and it was successful. Last week I was not successful (thanks, unexpected electrical fire). This week, I decided to take a sort of frontloading approach. Even if there is ample time later in the week to get in a run or a swim, I should do a serious workout every day, unless there's a REALLY good reason not to. That way, if everything goes well, Saturday is a relatively light day (or even a day off), but something going wrong won't necessarily torpedo the weekly goal. If I assume two trips to work in a week, and two trips to the beach for swimming, that's 45 kilometers right there. So I can have each week include one long bike ride (55K is the most I'd need to achieve 100K for the week, but other rides not accounted for here would almost certainly take place and lower that number). I've started to think of that as a "big" workout, along with my swims and any run of 10K or more.

On Monday, I worked the night shift, then came home, did stretches and strength training, then ran 10K. After that, I slept, then biked in to work. Yesterday, I had the night shift, biked home, stretched, did strength training, had breakfast, biked to the beach (including patching a blown tire), swam, biked home, did laundry, washed dishes, filled one of my 7-gallon jugs, went on a walk, practiced spanish, slept, then got up and came back to work. Which is where I am right now, on my last night shift for the week. Going at this pace, each weekday could include either a swim, a 10K run, or my one long bike ride for the week, and all that would leave for Saturday is a 5K run.

Fire

I had an electrical fire at home this morning. In many ways, I'm thankful. I'm thankful that my night shift got cancelled, so I was home when it happened. I'm thankful my home is wrapped in plastic, which trapped the smoke and made it impossible to miss. I'm thankful that I knew what to do, and how to fix it. I'm thankful that I had a friend who could come get me at the drop of a hat to drive me to the store for a part I needed.

That all being said, it totally killed my chances of hitting my half iron man goal for the week. I was doing fairly well; I went for a nice long bike ride on Monday, I went swimming on Wednesday, I even ran 9K yesterday and 10K the day before (despite heavy snow; I ran at least 2K through a foot of unshovelled pathway). All told, today was going to involve another swim and about 15K of biking to get me to my goals. But electrical work had to take precedence; it's below freezing here, even in the daytime, and that electrical circuit powers the heaters in my home. I could manage with plenty of clothing and blankets, but I have a cat, and it's not right to make him suffer. Besides, tomorrow is Sunday, and it's unlikely that any stores with the parts I needed would have been open, so it would have been fully two days without heating.

I feel thankful for that, too. I still got a fair bit done. I still did my stretches, and my strength training. Today marks four full weeks of 100 continuous reps on every strength exercise with no missed days. More than that, it's an example of a time when there is a legitimate reason that I didn't hit my target for the week, but I did a lot, and I shouldn't fuss over what I missed so long as it was for a good reason. I hit half an ironman last week, and I can do so again next week.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I still need to get my steps in, so I'll go on a long walk. I'll also get groceries for the week; I need Christmas dinner. I think I might try making traditional Norwegian food. Ribbe, steamed or pickled cabbage, potato dumplings, and krumkake.

Stagnation

I'm a couple days into week 4 of 100 continuous reps of every strength exercise. That means that, every day, I'm exceeding maximum push up and sit up standards for my age group according to Navy PRT requirements. Even if I were just joining at age 17, I'd still be scoring an "excellent high" for sit ups and maxing out push ups. Compared to a year or two ago, I've come a very long way, and I'm easily in the top 20% of men in my age group that exercise regularly; I'd wager I'm in the top 5% of men overall.

So is that it? Do I stop here? Do I just crank out 100 a day for the rest of my life? Unless I die pretty young, those numbers are going to go down. But until they do, do I push to get them higher? 110? 120? To what purpose? 100 is keeping me reasonably fit. I could probably do it 3 days a week instead of 6 and maintain myself where I am just as effectively. I might even see an improvement, based on having rest days, the way the folks over at r/bodyweightfitness suggest.

Or consider my body fat percentage. Do I want to do what it takes to keep it around 11 or 12? Am I really happier weighing myself every day and restricting what I eat and drink to try to stay this lean? Is happiness even the right thing to consider as a metric for success or worth? I'm going to keep exercising; I managed the equivalent of a half iron man set of distances last week, and I want to attain that again this week. But I need a goal. I'm getting fitter, but why? At what cost? To what end? Is 100 reps a day and a half ironman a week the apex of what I will achieve? Should it be? Should I go farther? Or broader?

Lessons from the first HIM week

I executed my crazy-sounding plan. Friday, I worked the day shift, went home, slept, and came in for the Saturday night shift. Saturday, I worked eight hours (doing my strength training and stretches during down time at work), biked home, changed, biked to the beach, swam, biked home, slept, and then ran to work for the night shift I'm on right now.

It would, I think, be perfectly reasonable for someone to read that summary and expect that I might be exhausted. But I'm not. I achieved my goal of doing at least a half ironman worth of all three exercises this week, and this is my third consecutive week of doing 100 continuous reps of every strength exercise every day. I did learn a few things, though.

I went on a couple evening walks this week, to achieve my goal of 10,000 steps per day. In order to achieve my goal of running 25 kilometers this week (and avoid exercising on Sunday, my rest day), I ran an indirect path to work for my Sunday shift. That means that I reached my goal with maybe 4o minutes to spare in the week. If the weather had been atrocious, or I had overslept and had to take a cab, or anything else had gone wrong with my run, I would have failed. It would have been better to go on evening jogs than walks; I'd get my steps in, I'd rack up distance towards my running goal, and it would be faster.

I also learned that hot chocolate made with maple syrup is a good beverage to have after a swim. My first batch was a little watery, but the flavor was good. It was just cocoa powder, milk powder, and maple syrup added to hot water. I'm going to make a version with maple sugar instead of syrup, so it will end up as a shelf-stable powder.

I found out that my employer stops letting you accrue vacation time after you have 40 days worth. I'm just about halfway to that. If I took no vacation for the next year (which is entirely possible), I might reach my cap. Hm.

HIM week

HIM as in "half ironman". Some athletes have a rule of thumb that you "can do in a day what you do in a week"; basically, that you can run/swim/bike/etc as far in one day as you normally run/swim/bike/etc. in a week. This is used as a guideline for how far you can, theoretically, push yourself for a competitive event without a lot of warning or preparation.

I'm not preparing for a competitive event, but when I got to the end of my formal triathlon training program, I found I needed a metric of some sort to live up to. So I decided to use this rule of thumb, and use the distances for a half-ironman triathlon as a starting point. I've rounded them up slightly, so my goal for this week is to bike 100 kilometers, run 25 kilometers, and swim 2 kilometers.

Monday was a strong start; I biked over 50 kilometers in a single trip. Tuesday, I swam a kilometer (even though my watch failed to record it). That was a very instructive swim, aside from being my first swim in December. I learned that broth is not a particularly appetizing beverage to warm up with after you've been in salt water. Tuesday and Wednesday were extremely hectic, and saw no progress. Thursday, I ran to work and home, racking up a bit shy of 16 kilometers total. These last two days are going to be rough; I'm at work for the day shift, I get eight hours to go home and sleep before the night shift (and I usually get my Saturday stretches and strength training done towards the end of that shift, if I have time), and then 16 hours off before I have to be back at work. I'm well past 100 kilometers of biking for the week, thanks to a lot of commuting, but I still have a touch over 9 km of running and a kilometer of swimming to do do reach a HIM this week without breaking into my rest day.

I could go home, sleep, bike to work, work (with exercise), bike home, change, bike to the beach, swim, bike home, sleep, and then run to work for the Sunday night shift. When did I become the sort of person who plans significant portions of their life around exercising?