Ok, I have to admit from the start – most people reading will probably not sympathize with me. Not one bit. But that’s ok – it’s my blog, so I’ll write about it anyway. 
And there are some gardening pictures if you stay until the end!
See, I’m having this problem for the last couple of weeks: I’m realizing just how out of shape I am. I can just see you rolling your eyes… right… but we’ll carry on, anyway. What I’ve realized is that while I may not be truly out of shape, I’m out of shape compared to where I think I should be. The main culprit, I think, are the last two years spent playing competitive ultimate – in those years, because I knew I was planning on a physically intense summer, I started training/conditioning around January to be able to get to an appropriate fitness level by the start of season in May. And that was great. Painful, but great.
The problem this year is that while I’m not playing competitive (and had decided this back in the winter), I still expect my body to be able to tolerate similar levels of punishment with no complaint. Well, let me tell you, it’s not cooperating.
The secondary reason is that while I appear to have cut back on the ultimate (even at the higher levels, I’ll admit that league games are not as physically tiring as a good practice), I also decided to add cycling to the mix. And forgot to compensate for it. Oops.
This week started with an ulti game on Monday in 35+ degree heat. Followed by biking to work (and back) on Tuesday in, you guessed it, 35+ degree heat. Followed by another ultimate game that evening in similar conditions. This is probably the first time I’ve showered *before* an ultimate game, but the bike ride left me drenched in sweat and feeling absolutely disgusting. While the shower only helped with the sweat problem for all of 10 minutes following, it did wonders for my self-esteem (and the ability of other people to approach closer than 5 feet, I bet).
By Wednesday morning, when I dragged myself out to the gym for a 7:30 bootcamp class, I was starting to realize that I had miscalculated somewhere along the way. Everything ached, and some things not in a good way. I skipped biking to work on Thursday, which turned out to be the right decision – my legs still felt like felt (hee hee) at the ultimate game.
This brings us to this morning’s bootcamp class – which, surprisingly, didn’t feel as punishing as I feared. So… could I be approaching the point of balance for my current level of fitness?
Tomorrow is Chris‘ bike ride to Manotick. We’ll be having glacial highs (compared to the rest of the week) of 25 degrees, which should make for a gorgeous weekend.
I think next week I’ll try upping my masochism to
- bootcamp Monday and Friday
- ultimate Monday, Tuesday, Thursday (non-negotiable)
- biking to work Wednesday, and possibly Friday.
So… any bets on how far down that list I’ll get before I have a good cry and again complain about getting old, slow and tired?
Here are a couple of garden pictures in case you stuck around this long.
