Optimism

My evening self thinks that swimming in the early morning seems like a very good idea. My morning self thinks that this is sheer idiocy! Fortunately Brent is willing to provide external prodding, otherwise I certainly would not have gotten up this morning and ridden over to the Camana Bay pool, where I had a truly excellent swim.

(I think the water is cooler than it was in the summer, certainly I had none of that unpleasantly sludgy feeling that was afflicting me in July and August over there.)

It's been about four and a half months since Wendy died. As with anything of this magnitude, it both seems like it just happened and also seems like it happened a lifetime ago.

They have been very difficult months for me - aside from the deep sense of loss, I've just felt completely out of control about almost everything to do with my life. The cat who was my companion since 1993 died in May, and my apartment is sublet through January. I canceled all my big races for the year and am not really training for anything seriously, nor am I in the thick of a big writing project. Low spirits combined with other obligations have largely prevented me from doing the things (writing, exercising) that usually keep me in good train; even at the best of times, it's difficult to stay on an exercise and healthy eating regimen while traveling, but during this last New York trip (my talk in Buffalo went very well, though!) I pretty much threw up my hands and admitted that I would have to get back to Cayman and stop living out of a bag before I could really dig in and try and get myself back on track in any meaningful sense.

I flew back yesterday, and it's a significant relief to be here....

I can now see that I pretty much have 2 months left to me of this sabbatical, and I need to set modest but determined goals.

I have a book manuscript to revise, it's true, but other than that, my main goal is to get back into shape and also re-embrace the nutritional straight and narrow. If I am going to do IMCd'A, I need to lose weight now and be in really good shape when I start training seriously in March or so - it is not realistic to think that one will lose weight during Ironman training.

I do have to travel for Thanksgiving and Xmas, so it is not a truly uninterrupted stretch, but I am going to devote all the energy I can this month to exercising a lot and figuring it will improve my mood more than almost anything else within my power to change.

I'm going to splurge on some personal training sessions at World Gym, since I have found in the past that this is a very sure-fire and low-willpower way to get into shape (also it gives me accountability on what I'm eating - I do not even want to think about the nutritionally unsound choices I have been making for the past four months!).

I'm going to swim as much as possible; I'm going to see if I can do low-intensity long spin bike sessions while reading a book on my new Kindle; I'm not going to run a lot, since it's not the most enjoyable thing in Cayman heat, but I'll do enough (including interval and hill sessions on the treadmill and a weekly long run) that I'll be in good shape to run quite a bit in New York in January and February.

If I can end the year in pretty OK shape fitness-wise and with a new version of the little book on style that I drafted in the spring, it will have been a worthwhile year from the point of view of achieving personal goals; and I now think it can be done, although I am sure I will still have some more days where I am in very low spirits and can do nothing other than lie in bed!

100 free
100 drill-swim by 25 (catch-up)
100 free
100 drill-swim by 25 (6-3-6)

IM transitions: 50 fly drill, 50 fly drill-back by 25, 50 back, 50 back-breast, 50 breast, 50 breast-free, 50 free, 50 free-fly drill

4 x 50 fly-breast by 25
4 x 50 back-breast by 25

2 x (4 x 50 free on 1:20): (1) easy (2) build (3) easy (4) hard (:59, :60)

50 cooldown

1650 meters total