Wednesday night was swim class time. I mentioned before that my friend Tara and I are splitting this session. She had e-mailed me to let me know that she couldn’t go this week so this was my night to go swim. Time to get the mind in gear so it would know that we were swimming at 9 pm and that was that. No other option!
Last week I grabbed a coffee in the early evening to make sure I’d be awake for that 9 pm swim. On Wednesday I didn’t even have any caffeine in the afternoon! (I know this for sure because I started keeping a food log yesterday, but more on that at another time…) I was really taking a chance by not having had any form of caffeine since…oh…10:30??
I came home, made dinner and sure enough, come 8 pm I started to feel a little sleepy. Mind over matter though as it was time to push through. Last just a little longer and I’d have to leave for swimming. Wouldn’t you know it, I made it out the door and to the pool! I swam and it was okay. Not great, but okay. I couldn’t quite get the feel of the water. I’m not sure if it was because I had swum Tuesday morning or if it was because the lane I was swimming in felt super narrow. Somehow or other I still made it through 2000 m so that wasn’t too bad. I came home and followed what will likely become my new post-evening swim ritual. Hot chocolate (with Ovaltine actually) with a couple of marshmallows in bed with Ratatouille in the DVD player. I probably fell asleep within 10 minutes of the light going off. Ratatouille….works like a charm every time!
Thursday was a 40 minute run. I threw my gear in a bag to take to work so I could run over lunch, but I was about 15 minutes away from work when I realized my Garmin was at home. Sitting right by the computer which is a pretty useful place for it! I’ll admit it, when I had this realization my heart rate went up a notch. I <3 my Garmin! Not because I like to look at it all the time during my run, but I love having a map showing where I went…the graphs that show how hard I worked…all catalogued nicely on SportTracks.
Oh well, while I may like this data I sure wasn’t turning around to get the Garmin. And I wasn’t putting my run off until later in the day since it was going to be so nice out over lunch! So I kicked it old school and ran 40 minutes with my Timex. In some ways it was quite liberating to not worry about pace in the slightest. But that doesn’t mean I intend to leave my Garmin at home intentionally any time soon!!
Good for you for swimming in the evening. The water is funny, some days you can get a grip on it, some days you can’t.
If you really need to, you can use the ruler tool in Google Earth to trace your path, and find out how far you’ve gone. Not as good as Garmin, I admit, but better than wondering.
You and your late night swims. Way to go! Now, let’s hope I can get up in the morning for a swim.. it will be my 3rd attempt this week….but will it be successful?
Nice job on the swim and run!
I’ll have to try out the “Ratatouille” fall asleep method. I’ve been meaning to borrow it from The Rugrats since I gave it to them as a gift over a year ago!
Good job! Swimming always makes me so tired so maybe swimming in the evening would help me sleep.
Awesome job mustering the energy to go swim! Funny about that movie putting you to sleep! haha
I think I’ve said this before, but I can’t imagine getting ready and out the door for such a late class. I’m winding down and getting ready for bed by then. Good for you pushing through the lack of caffeine!
Nice job on the run, too. I always feel liberated without my Garmin, and yet I can’t bring myself to leave it behind intentionally. I like stats too much.
Well done on getting to the late swim. In the winter, when it’s cold and dark out, I really have to motivate myself to leave home once I get there.
The dreaded food log! Every day I say, “Beth, I’m gonna start doing my food logs again tomorrow” and then I forget *chuckle*.
Wow 9pm Swim! I didn’t know there were pools tht stayed open that late? Coongrats on getting it done.
On the running with a Timex, I’ve been doing that with mapmytri.com to measure my routes. It’s low tech but it’s worked for me so far.
man a 9pm class..I know Iwould find myself backing out. But you are right if I made a mental commitment than that would be it, good reminder