|
Today is Day 5 of the half marathon training schedule, which calls for rest. I’m choosing to interpret “rest” as a leisurely 3-1/2-mile walk. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I’d love to hear your comments. We met for lunch at Café Red Onion. She ordered the spinach and goat cheese enchiladas. I ate the usual pupusas revueltas—fat cornmeal pancakes stuffed with shredded pork and other good things. We talked about writing. Since that topic encompasses everything else that we both live and breathe, the conversation covered a lot of ground.
The July Project: Day 29
About a year ago, a business development client and good friend said to me, “I love my job, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing, my whole life is perfectly on track except for this one thing: I’m fat, and it makes me miserable.’ My answer was, “Well, I guess we know what to work on next.’ She picked a bad time to get me fired up about a new project—the second week of August. She’s not a big fan of Houston summer heat. But she somehow pushed through her reluctance …[MORE] The July Project: Day 28At the end of last November, in an effort to jump-start a weight-loss regimen that had stalled, I made up my mind to walk twice around the loop at Memorial Park every day for the month of December. November 30 was a Monday, so I started one day early for good measure. The next day, just in time for my “official†December Project kickoff, the weather turned nasty for two solid weeks. December 1, it was raining and 45 degrees by evening. Then a cooling trend set in. By Thursday, there was talk of snow. I woke up Friday morning to moderate flurries …[MORE] The July Project: Day 27
We’re down to the last five days of the month. I woke up this morning thinking how easy it is to run out of steam right at the end of a project like this, and wondering what extra effort I might need to put forth to get the rest of the way to the goal, which was to give time and attention to this blog every day in July. I was also thinking about how I’ve struggled for the last couple of months to get rid of the weight I gained …[MORE] The July Project: Day 21I headed to the park for my walk early today because my first Learn to Row class was tonight. I arrived there around 3:30, the hottest part of the day. I didn’t have to wait long for relief from the heat, though. The sky clouded over, and then about halfway through the first lap, it started to sprinkle. It didn’t rain for very long—maybe about 10 minutes—just enough to get me miserably wet. Then the sun came back out and turned all the fresh rain into a layer of hot steam that hovered over the trail. It was too humid to dry out from the wetting, but it didn’t matter, because another one was coming anyway. As I got to the last half-mile leg of the 6½‑mile walk, the sky opened up. This time, it was more than a sprinkle. The torrential rain continued until about the time I arrived back at my car …[MORE] The July Project: Day 18In 2008, I attended a lecture by Dr. Henry Lodge, one of the authors of Younger Next Year In the question-and-answer session that followed his presentation, someone asked Dr. Lodge, “So how much exercise is the right amount?†He replied that although no one has nailed down a precise, scientific answer to that question, a good rule of thumb might be four days a week in your 40s, five days a week in your 50s, and six days a week from your 60s on …[MORE] The July Project: Day 16I’ve written a couple of times before about Rule #2: Everything Counts. Today will be one of those days when I invoke Rule #2. I put in a long work day, then packed my bags and took off for Galveston. I didn’t get here until after 10 p.m., ate a late dinner, and then settled in to write. As soon as I publish this post, I’ll go for a walk. It’ll be after midnight, so I only plan to walk the four blocks down to the Seawall, then maybe a few blocks along the beach and back. That’s okay, because in this game of getting some exercise every day, everything counts. I don’t entirely grasp the psychological mechanisms at work in Rule #2, but I know that it works …[MORE] The July Project: Day 14
For two weeks, I’ve been kicking around a draft post about mantras. I approach the topic with trepidation, because I don’t ever want want to sound like I’m trying to spout “wisdom.†(Somebody please kick me in the head if I ever start believing I’m wise.) I have no wisdom except what I’ve borrowed from other sources, so I can only add my two cents—the results of experiments that I’ve carried out in the search …[MORE] The July Project: Day 13I’m an emotional eater. I’ve learned this about myself over and over again, but sometimes the realization doesn’t set in until 10 or 15 minutes after the food goes down. Here’s the process:
I’m trying to train myself to anticipate step 3 before I act on step 2 …[MORE] |
||
|
© 2024 Working or Playing? All rights reserved. Log in Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||
She talked about inspiration and the nocturnal activities of her particular muse. There was a voice that came to her one night to dictate notes for years’ worth of writing projects. I speculated about the creative unconscious, the unknown workings of the mute machinery of our brains that collects, organizes, catalogs, and stores images, sounds, smells, emotions, and abstract ideas and then assembles them into dreams, long-term memories, and all the wonders of fantasy. I wondered why she was so eager to give the credit for her brilliance to something outside herself 
, a book that purports to offer ideas to help men fend off some of the physical symptoms of aging. The central theme of Dr. Lodge’s talk was a point that might seem counterintuitive: that we need more exercise as we get older, not less.
