Mountains Made Low

It really did. It wasn’t, necessarily, but it sure felt like it.

I decided, again, that I might really want the gym in the afternoon. And I was right, again.

In the morning, yesterday, I got up a little before 7 and finished commenting on the student papers for my conferences with those students yesterday. These were second drafts of big research essays. They’re coming along pretty well…everyone has made some progress since the first draft, maybe not as much as I’d like to see in all cases, but everyone is making progress.

Then I went in and had the conferences, starting at 9:30, with one half-hour break, and continuing until 1. Then class. Then faculty senate. Again, a pretty quick and painless meeting. Not much really going on. The only thing we really discussed was someone going to talk to the president about tenure, particularly in terms of retaining faculty. And that’s not even a big risk, because the president is interested in the subject—seems to think it would be a good idea.

But after the senate meeting, I went to the gym. And by then I really wanted it. Really really really. I kept going and going and going. I was the damn Energizer bunny.

After a week back at it, I got back to the point I was at before I went on hiatus yesterday. It was awesome, and I’m not even sore or stiff today. Hooray. 44 minutes, 4.03 miles, 5.49 miles per hour on average. It was really good, and I felt—again—like I could have gone on. But—again—I’m still finding my limits, and I don’t want to overdo it, because I want to keep doing it.

Forgive me for being somewhat single-minded over the past few days: everything I’ve written here has seemingly been about exercise or has used exercise as part of an extended metaphor for something else. But I’ve been thinking about it some more. As is my wont.

Forgive me, too, for using the blog as a space in which to record my getting back to it (exercise) progress. Today: 26 minutes, 2.36 miles, 5.47 mph on average. I think I’m going to target 26 again tomorrow and then try to add on another two minutes on Tuesday.

But here’s the thing. Most of this semester at work, I’d been telling myself that the busy-ness of work (meetings all the time, etc.) was why I haven’t been going to do my exercise. Then I spent most of this week telling myself that I was a rationalizing nimrod for letting that get in the way—after all, I went on Thursday and Friday this week, didn’t I?

As I made my way to the Y today, though, aiming to hit the tiny-ish target that is their open hours on Sunday (1-4 pm) I realized that while I may well be a rationalizing nimrod, I also had a point.

You see, having, though the fall term, left work in the afternoon, and gone to the Y, I noticed that getting there in the mid-afternoon, so that I was done with what I was trying to do by late afternoon, worked really well. But that getting there in the late afternoon, so that I was exercising until the early evening didn’t work so well. The Y gets busy in the early evening. People get of work and come to work out. It’s understandable.

They’re open until 8 M-Th, and until 7 on Friday. But people really start to come in force at about 5. The way my life’s going this semester, 5 is about the earliest I could get there a lot of days, and then it’s a mad dash and competition for the various machines (especially if I start lifting weights again, which I may or may not). Also, if people are waiting, there’s a 30 minute limit on the cardio equipment. Not a problem yet, but by this time next week, I hope it would be.

So here’s my thought. I’m thinking I’m going to start going to do my exercise in the morning. First thing. Before work. Shocking, isn’t it? The thing is, I get up at 6:30 anyway, so why not put that time to good use, right?

I’m going to try it tomorrow (which is part of why I’m glad I was done by 2:15 today), and we’ll see how it goes. I hope they’re not too busy in the morning, and I’ll get my exercise in, then hit the shower, and maybe even change in curtained cubicle provided for that purpose. Not. If I leave the house by 7, I’ll be in the office sometime between 8:30 and 9. Able to get some work done, do the other morning stuff while I’m at it.

Sounds like a plan to me. Worth giving it a try, anyway.

But on Monday, if I leave at 7 am and get home at 9 pm, Tigger will probably think I’ve completely abandoned her.