Ch-ch-ch-changes...time may change me, but I can't change time. -- David Bowie
A double quote and a video day! Oh boy! It surprises me how many changes have occurred over this journey of the last 7 months. Some of the changes are goofy, some of them serious - but I've been thinking about it a lot lately, especially as I'm looking at what comes next. So here are some of the changes I've noticed and been thinking about:
1) My arms have muscles. Little ones, but still, you can kind of see a shape when I wear sleeveless tops, which is like always. I wore sleeveless tops before, because I hate sleeves, but now I wear sleeveless tops because my arms aren't so wiggly. On the flipside, because I'm a klutz, the bottom side of my upper arms are often bruised from running into the lanelines while swimming backstroke or pinching my arms while hanging on the lanelines between sets. Very pretty - not.
2) I want to know more and do more about being healthy. I'm not very good at implementation, but I've been spending more time learning about health, especially diet. I'm totally hooked on two podcasts right now, Balanced Bites and The Paleo View, and am catching up on their past episodes. My life has been so crazy that I haven't been able to use a lot of what I'm learning, but at least I'm inspired and am trying to make small changes here and there. I'm hoping that I'll be able to make some bigger changes as time goes on with respect to my eating. This is more about the first quote - my desires about eating are changing. Slowly - don't get me wrong, I still eat (and crave) a bunch of crap, but I was able to step away from the donuts and fill my plate with fruit this morning at a work event.
3) I smell like chlorine. No really. I smell like chlorine most of the time. It's not unpleasant. I actually kind of like it.
4) I'm getting braver. I am not as shy about walking into unfamiliar situations as I have been in the past, whether social or athletic. I never would have chosen to do a mile-swim race before...I never felt as confident introducing myself to strangers...I never interjected myself into conversations about running or triathlons with people that I didn't know...I never responded to people on the Internet that I hadn't met, even if I had something to say. I'm still nervous about the events...the swim, the HIM, the hopeful spring Mary... I'm about to do - and I'm still not an extrovert - but I am braver.
5) I am more consistent. I don't have as many days when I flake out on my workouts or fall apart eating-wise. I don't turn off my alarm nearly as often (heck, I made 6am Masters twice this week!).
6) I want better health for my kids. I've become a little more worried about the crap they've been eating and have decided to enforce more healthy lunch-packing rules for this upcoming school year. I'm also worried about how much sleep they are getting and whether they are having enough time to relax. Sure, I'm also worried about my husband's health, but he's a grown up and makes his own choices. The girls have made choices based on what I have in the house and, although they don't eat a bunch of chips and stuff, they don't need multiple granola bars or cereal bars or whatever a day. They need good protein and fruit in addition to their main sandwich or whatever.
7) I am getting better at scheduling my time. It's making me a little nuts, but I'm having to pretty much schedule my whole day in the morning (if not the night before) and my whole work-out week on a week ahead. You'd think that by my age I'd be better at this.
Stumbled upon your blog whilst searching for swim workouts. I'm not a big blog reader, but yours is actually pretty funny and well written. Keep it up, and good luck in the half IM.
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