I just finished a four-mile run, and tomorrow I’m planning to participate in the Firecracker 4, a four-mile fun run in Saratoga Springs, NY. I also am contemplating a post-run swim along with a bicycle ride and swim on Sunday.
On paper, this looks marvelous. In reality, I’m wondering.
My year’s resolutions were like those of many others. I wanted to run the Twin Cities Marathon and I wanted to complete the Fronhofer Tool’s Olympic Distance Triathlon. To be sure that I would follow through on these aims, I set aside funds and made sure to get myself registered for both events before the early-bird deadlines hit. I also mapped out what felt like an enjoyable and sociable plan to participate in local 5K, 10K and other races throughout the year.
More or less, the plan has worked out. Knowing that my body is aging and that my risk for over-training injuries from running particularly is higher, I decided that I would aim to run no more than three times a week until at least after the August 1 triathlon, and that I would use the other events of the triathlon — swimming and bicycling — to support the endurance needed to complete a marathon. Knowing also that bicycling is the longest — and for me, the weakest — part of a triathlon, I also resolved to go to as many indoor spin classes as I could manage during the winter to build up my cycling muscles and work on technique. In the spirit of easing injuries and maintaining a strong level of flexibility, I also decided that I would do longer yoga classes consistently through the winter and would swim distances that might be a bit more than necessary because swimming is an excellent way to train for endurance and because frankly I really do like to swim.
So 29 days remain before the triathlon. Three months remain before the marathon.
How do I feel? As the title of this essay notes, consistently inconsistent.
Despite my best intentions, life has consistently gotten in the way of regular training. In February, the issue was snow and blizzards. In April, it was travel. In May, it was a sinus infection — probably from the travel. For the first nine days of June, it was a deadline: We needed to get seedlings in the ground before I left for a nine-day work trip to Salt Lake City. For the last seven days of June, it was more farm related work and community related work.
As a result, the training record looks splotchy in places: No workouts whatsoever from June 2-9. Daily workouts — and sometimes twice daily workouts — from June 10-17. A rest day on June 18, which was the return trip home from Salt Lake City. Nice easy and invigorating workouts from June 19-22. Then bam, nothing at all for five days. Then, two days of really good workouts, followed by two days of nothing. Today actually was supposed to be a rest day, to rest up for the race. I decided to run because I needed to blow off some steam and because I knew I would feel better afterwords — physically and emotionally.
Grappling with the realities of consistent inconsistency makes me realize that this is the framework for life. We are good — and we are not so good. Sometimes when we are good to ourselves, it feels like we are pampering ourselves at the expense of the needs of others. When that occurs, a dose of self-induced guilt often engulfs us, creating reasons to put the workouts aside in order to take care of others. That is perhaps not a bad thing: It is good to take care of others. But what about ourselves? Who takes care of us?
Workout plans for yesterday got sidelined when one of the goats my husband and I have been raising ended up with a bleeding hoof. A quick phone call to the farmers who have mentored us through the goat-raising process helped us learn how to treat the wound — with gauze, a bandaging material called co-flex, and an antiseptic called Hoof and Heal. Of course, none of these things were in our medicine cabinet so I grabbed the car keys and prepared to head out to the nearby farming goods store, Tractor Supply Company. On the way, I muttered somewhat resignedly, somewhat frustratedly, and somewhat jokingly that it didn’t look like I would get a workout in. My husband got upset. How could I think of workouts when one of the animals was suffering?
He was right in a way, but the comment got under my skin. Partly perhaps because it verbalized what I perhaps imagine constantly. Workouts come in a day where the work never ends. So every minute devoted to a run, a swim, a bicycle ride, a yoga class is a minute that is not devoted to something else. Grumpily, I headed out to Tractor Supply thinking that people only cared about me when it was in their interest to do so. Knowing I was grumpy, I knew also that this was not really true and that I am very blessed to have a big universe of people who do indeed care for me and about me a lot. My husband, my parents, my siblings, and scores of relatives and friends have got my back. But when push comes to shove they too are busy and stressed. Care for and care about might be external expressions, gestures that others extend to the self. Care of is perhaps a little different. It is care of the self. It is the work of making consistent inconsistency a little more like inconsistent inconsistency, or consistent consistency. It is a flipping of adjectives, nouns, and qualifiers to give you the best you can give yourself — while also giving the best you can give to others in return.
On a positive note, Rocky, the goat who was injured, is doing well. Like a kid, literally and metaphorically, he bounced back and probably up to some goat-like mischief right now. And I made up for yesterday’s inconsistency with another inconsistency: I swapped out a rest day for a run and am feeling terrific, as a result.
Moving Your Body 