Saturday, January 21, 2006

Exercise Addiction

And I was surprised at the immediate surety I had in response to the question about discovering it's a rainy day. When I was running track/cross country in college I did a paper on exercise addiction and realized it applied to me. I had to spend a number of years learning to lighten up (and getting fat) before I considered myself recovered from competition enough to get serious again. I allow myself days off now. And I don't skip lunch to make sure I'm ready for practice at 3:00. Still, I spend a good bit of time thinking about it. My thought process on a typical recent Saturday night:

Next week . . . Big Spin class on Tuesday night, so that will be the big bike ride for the weeknights. Working at the community center Thursday night, so that will be the recovery day. Work at 9 Friday instead of 8, so that gives me time to get a swim in before work since it's hard to motivate Friday night. That's a second day of recovery for the legs, so Wednesday will have to be a good running night. Swim optional that night depending on how I feel. I'll be due for both a run and a bike ride Saturday, so I'll have to see what the schedule allows. Monday I work at noon, so the morning will be for running the dogs. I could also try to swim Monday morning but probably won't get up and around in time, so that means I must swim tomorrow. I also need to ride my bike tomorrow. I work at the community center 2:30-5:15, so it has to be before that. I'll need to get out of the pool around 2 to have time to shower and eat, which means I need to get in the water by 1:15 at the latest. So I need to be on my bike by noon, and 11:30 would be better. That means I should have breakfast between 8 and 9 so I'm not too full but still have enough energy to get through the workouts. So I'll set my alarm for 8:00.

4 comments:

Degolar said...

Of course the companion obsession to exercise is weight. I've recovered enough from my post-competition burnout to get back into decent shape, but I'm still not maintaining healthy eating habits. For the 4 years or so I was competing in college I stayed around 172-175. I spent the next 4 or 5 years gradually gaining until I settled in around 250. The heaviest I ever got was 268, but I was just under 250 when I decided to get into triathlons to lose weight a couple of years ago. The lightest I got during the 2004 season was 221-223, but was back around 227-228 at the time of my accident that December. I gained 10-15 pounds back while in the neck brace and it's kind of fluctuated since. I'm currently around 230 and steadily dropping (and aggressively working at it again). My goal is 200.

Hadrian said...

I cannot relate to this post at all.

asdfasdfadfasd said...

I'm sorry, I understand the meaning of the words "exercise" and "addiction"; but when you put them together the screen went blurry and I became confused.

Kelly Sime said...

Too many people worry about their weight, the way they look, how much excercise they get, what they're eating, etc. How about worrying about your self esteem? Or world peace? Or something that really matters?