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.