Do nothing by halves - that's my motto.
A friend of mine reckons us adults with OCD, well a form of it at least, are driven people. When we decide on a goal we go for it and we become blinkered, yes, alright, obsessed.
Last night shared a gorgeous, healthy pot-luck dinner with friends and realised, that boringly, I keep talking about sport, training - and myself.
So here I am again, doing the same and the Gracious Me and Ego Me, are having as much of a battle as Inner Athlete and Wheedle Voice.
What happens is that the GM keeps downplaying my efforts, in a joking, piss-take way, just to keep EM at bay. "Stop putting yourself down," one of my friends said last night.
The EM agrees, of course, but the GM is the boss. See what crazy psychological games happen in this quest for fitness, balance and peace?
In this journey, I have discovered some telling things about myself:
1. When it comes to walking (or running, when I get there), I prefer to train alone. So please don't take offence if I decline your offer to stride out with you. It's just that you won't be able to match my rhythm, simply because it completely depends on what is blaring through my headphones. Also, my life is extremely social, so this is my dream time and I spend a lot of it refocusing myself on what I have to do in terms of training.
2. I am terribly competitive. That doesn't mean I be first all the time, but when I'm walking, I want to pass people and when I'm swimming I subconsciously race the people in my lane or the next. I don't often win these aquatic races, but they spur me on.
3. While I love variety in most things, especially work challenges, in sport I could walk every day and do nothing else because I love it so much. But to do a triathlon, I need variety, so I'm mixing it up big time. This is taking an effort.
4. Am coming to the conclusion that I probably need a rest day, or at least one when I don't do a full-on, sweat-it-up, training session. It's about recovery, I guess, so am thinking Thursday might be the day because that always seems to be my downer of a week. If I look back, that's always the day I want to sleep a lot and, work-wise, I always find it a struggle. It's also the day I'm most likely to get sick. I like the idea of having indulgent Thursdays, so will earmark this day for massages and other pampering activities.
5. I hate being the bottom of the fitness class. When I was at school, I was one of those kids that excelled at PE and was a Sporty Spice. Now in my late 40s, it's horrible to find myself the worst in the class at exercise dancing and bike spinning. It's quite off-putting and it's tempting never to go back to these classes and, instead, do what I find easy. However, that's not going to happen because I need the spin classes to help me get cycle fit.
6. While reading stuff to find information is great, I prefer to get it straight from the experts. Yesterday, I had a swimming-style lesson with Ayla Dunlop-Barrett, who is one of New Zealand's top surf lifesavers. She's actually a world beater. Ayla takes squad training at the aquatic centre and was extremely practical, helpful and encouraging. I knew my style was completely wrong and I was right. Now I have to do lots of elbow bending and not worry about the fact I only breathe on one side - she does too! I have to reach through a hole in the water and reach out for a pocket of firm water and pull it towards me with bent arms. Lots of lovely images there to think about while swimming.
7. I need to read the sports pages more. Ayla introduced me to her partner, a rather handsome young man with a lovely smile. His name is Glenn Anderson and he's been sort of rail-roaded into putting together a triathlon-training programme for me. This is all part of their training business, so remuneration will be happening, I'm sure. Anyway, I arrived home feeling buoyed and told my husband, Warren, about this. "What did you say his name was?" he asked. "Glenn Anderson," I replied. He shook his head in wonder and said: "He's the captain of the New Zealand surf lifesaving team." I grinned: "Really?! Oh well, may as well go to the top, eh?" Note to self: Keep up with the news, Virginia, you're a journalist - and a former lifesaving reporter!
8. I do need moral support and encouragement. In fact, I thrive on it. Every time someone puts a positive message on on Facebook or sends me an email, it gives me the biggest boost. I suppose this makes me a bit needy and I know, from all the self-help books, that I should find inner contentment, not rely on outward sources, but I still love them. My niece Sarah called me from Perth last night and that left me sooooo uplifted. My whanau are so brilliant and so are my friends. Arohanui to you all. xxx
Yesterday, I:
Walked extremely fast for 45 minutes
Had a swimming-style lesson
Drank heaps of water
Ate three incredibly healthy meals
Drank three cups of coffee
Worked for 8 hours
Slept for 7 hours
Today, I:
Decided to have a rest day
Worked for 10 hours
Slept for 6 hours
Have eaten one healthy meal and one that was a bit too cream-cheesy (that was lunch and am yet to have dinner)
Have had two cups of coffee
Had two green teas
A few glasses of water
Dear mother, I did not know that you were a lifesaving journalist. What does that consist of? Saving lives then writing about how you did it? Or saving lives with with journalism techniques. I noticed you had a little typo, I think you will find, 'the' is not spelt 'teh'. Well I thought you would be happy that I finally read your blog. Well done, keep up the good work =). Love your daughter =) xoxo
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