Unfortunately, my inclination to stay active is frustrated routinely by the effects of mental clutter that has me fomo’ing a blur of professional and personal obligations. That’s to say, I’d go out for a run were I not feeling like I was waiting for the phone to ring or an email to arrive or nudging myself to go out and make some art, darnitall. The net result is that if I don’t schedule a workout into my plan well in advance, the old gears grind to a halt and somehow I linger in the wings failing to do much of anything productive at all. 

A subjective standstill.

Somehow, despite these odds, I have been fitness’ing by…

I showed up for Wednesday run club on the heels of a day-long storm that was just clearing as I set out to drive over to the store. Only two of us showed up, likely because of the rain, and we logged a humid and mostly-cool six klicks through the suburban asphalts. Puddles abounded. 

I forgot to wear my watch when I went to the pool before lunch on Thursday. This may seem like a trivial thing, but it did incur me the duty of keeping mental track of my laps, and counting accurately while submerged is a trick like patting one’s head whilst rubbing one’s belly. It is an act of coordination. Nevertheless, accurate or not, I came up with a satisfactory number and the simultaneous conclusion that swimming at ten in the morning is not the best time for lane busyness. 

I was undecided on a Thursday run so I declined to initiate a plan, but others intervened and we ended up meeting down south. Our planned six klick tour of the neighbourhood missed a critical turn so we followed the trail to the next available exit and wound and wend a route we have misguided ourselves to previously. It added an additional two klicks to the distance, which doesn’t sound like much but two unplanned klicks along a deceptively long suburban road takes literally forever to finish.

I have been to the local Park Run a half dozen times give or take over the last couple years. My beef with the fun run is that it “is not a race” but there is a course, start, finish, timer and people sure act like they are racing. Oh, sure—the race is only ever with yourself, but the vibe makes me amp up my game for better or worse, and yet there I was Saturday at the start line again.

As the maintenance shut down for the nearby pool looms just over a week away, I am making sure to continue to try to build a habit before that habit shifts to another facility further away. Tuesday by seven thirty in the morning I was swimming laps and pushing myself to go a bit further. All bets remain on the early swims as the best time, at least in the summer. We’ll see how it shapes up when school is back in and all the students are stuck in class.