Holding Myself Back Today

Today is one of those days where when I woke up, I just felt awesome. My DOMS is gone, I got 9 hours of sleep, I didn't feel particularly fatigued, didn't feel like there were a million things I should be doing--it just felt like a day with lots of potential.

As I got my day started--eating something, taking out the garbage and recycleables--I realized I was rushing for no good reason, so I told myself to relax, which was good.

So I went to the pool, and the water was warm, but I didn't care. I was part way through my main set, which I chose to do with Zoomers on, to make it easier on myself (even though at the time I was swimming hard for me), since that is the objective for day, and then my favorite scenery showed up. I finished my 8x150 as 100 hard, 50 easy, 15" RI, and then I just decided I had swam enough, so I noodled around, chatted with the scenery, took a nice, long, hot shower and headed home to work.

I kept up my non-rushing attitude, and it occurred to me that this is the same mindset I have while in transition in a triathlon. If you are all worried and herky-jerky you are likely to stumble, forget something, or just put yourself in a bad mental place. If you've planned ahead and you know you have what you need in your transition bags and you methodically go through them and remain (relatively) calm, you aren't going to be wasting any time. So I suppose that we "create" the ability to be relaxed by planning ahead a bit, but that doesn't seem like a paradox to me. The time to go fast in a race is when you are, well racing. That is when you are just using your body to do what you've trained it to do, hopefully in auto-pilot mode.

Transition, to me, is all about purposefulness and setting the tone for the next leg of the race. It's a bad time to think about what happened in the leg of the race you just finished--like you went too slow or you got hit or kicked or you were cold or hot. What's done is done. It's called transition for a reason. You are preparing for the next part.

There's a time to be in the present moment, to be in the now, and that is indeed, most of our day. I'm (fill in the blank)-ing. But I think it also pays to be mindful of all the transitions that occur throughout the day, as they are also golden opportunities for mindfulness. So the next time someone asks what you are doing or thinking about while you appear to be sitting quietly doing nothing, just say you are transition-ing--preparing for the next thing you will be doing.

I've got a number of other transitions to do today, and hope they are all as smooth as the ones that are already done!

Edit: I thought I should write this down since I found it quite funny. On the way into the Y, you can see down into the basketball courts/running track. I saw one of the trainers strapping a gizmo to a guy's back that was attached to a 25-lb. barbell plate on the ground. So I yell at them, "NIIIIIICE" and tell the guy to run hard. Of course I was thinking to myself, could I do that? Not sure I'd pull 25 lbs., but 10 wouldn't be too bad. Anyway, there was another woman going in right behind me, and she heard me and looked, and then she says to me, "That's crazy." I turn to her and said, "Honey, you're LOOKING AT crazy!" Meaning me. And I told her to ask the woman at the front desk why.

My run was glorious. It didn't get as warm as I hoped, but still, I didn't need gloves or a beanie, and I went commando under the tights. I ran into the wind first, but couldn't avoid hills--no matter which way I run from home they're there. I tried to stay relaxed and run easy, but I actually ran OK--no complaints. I'm feeling like my hill-running strength is returning, and it's all good.