It's Not Always Easy... And That's Ok

Today contained at least two reminders that just because it’s hard doesn’t mean I’ve failed.

I’m in between running training programs right now. I’ve got about five weeks to bridge before the training cycle for the next race begins. I can’t just take that whole time off, because I need to be running fifteen to twenty miles a week when I start that next set of workouts. The problem is that I always have a hard time going out for a long run when it’s not part of a training program for a particular race. When I’m in a program, I know that there could be consequences for not getting out there. When I’m not, I’m a lot more casual about it. That’s one thing that made going for a run today harder.

The other thing that made it harder was that I felt like crap. I was really low-energy, because of a number of things — not sleeping well last night, going for a fast run last time out, doing my long run on one day of rest instead of two, and not going for a long run last weekend (among others). As a result, it was an eight-mile slog. Fortunately, I’ve developed enough grit that I can keep running through that, partly by fooling myself and saying I won’t walk yet but I will walk later, partly by telling myself that I shouldn’t be afraid of hard work. That how I got through this morning’s run.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered it was actually faster than the last long training run I’d done before the race. The one I felt great on. Yeah.

As I said when I got back, I’m not developing the ability to feel great on all my runs. I’m developing the ability to go faster while not feeling any worse. Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean I’ve failed.

(The other reminder of that was writing this post, which I took three running leaps at before I was finally able to figure out what I was trying to say. And like that run, it may not have been great, but it’s what I needed to do.)

A New Kind of Nervous

The last nine days have been fantastic for me. I’d like to think that’s because of changes I’ve been making in my approach to my projects and to-do lists. As a result, I’ve made solid progress every day on everything I’ve committed to. I feel great, because I’ve been eating smart and exercising well. I’m pointed in the right direction, because I’ve had the time to consider what I’m working on and why, rather than just going heads down on my to do list. And I’m feeling really balanced, in no small part because I’ve been able to spend a lot of quality time with Gwen.

All of this is making me incredibly nervous. I’ve suddenly started worrying my virtue is unsustainable. I’m at that point on the anxiety curve where every day I keep pulling this off feels like I’ve gotten a reprieve from the usual order of things. I’m not yet used to this enough to think of it as the new normal. If I can keep this up for another week, I’ll feel better. Until then, I keep thinking, “Maybe the reason this is working is just a fluke. Maybe it’s because of the calendar. Maybe it has nothing to do with me.”

The weird part for me is that I’ve never had this experience before. I’ve never been one to question when things go right. I’m curious about where this reaction is coming from, but the thing I need to do is keep telling myself is that even if things go pear-shaped for a day or two, I can recover. I won’t have to start over from the beginning. I’ve gotten myself this far, and I can get myself back to this point again if I need to.

Do Not Want

On the day after Thanksgiving, Becky has this Fourth Friday Challenge for me:

“Anti-Gratitude List, or ‘I cursed the day these things were born/created/developed.’ At least five, please.”

This one is surprisingly hard for me. I don’t follow the code of the hater. In high school, I noticed how much time and energy some people wasted on hating other people or things that they couldn’t change. Doing that wasn’t a personality trait that I had, and I decided that I would stomp it out whenever I noticed it rearing its ugly head. So I’m going to have to go into a brainstorming rant to come up with this list. Let’s start the clock.

• Willful ignorance / limited rationality / a lack of desire to discover someone else’s perspective.
• Not running the damn tests.
• Not reverting out changes that break the build.
• Committing new code to the repository when the build is already broken.
• People who don’t understand how a four-way stop works.
• Things that sound all-natural but whose ingredient lists make it clear they’re not.
• The belief that businesses exist solely to maximize profits.
• That bananas go from being tasty to being not-so-tasty but still edible in such a short period of time.
• The myth of effective multitasking.

That’s what came out in the first five minutes. There was more there than I thought, and there’s probably still more yet if I want to keep digging. I realize now that because this sort of thing is not normal for me is exactly why Becky asked me about it. Well played, Becky. Well played.

Lazy But Not

The last few weekends have been busy for Gwen and I, so we were both looking forward to this one, which was almost completely clear of commitments. I did have an improv show last night, and we’re heading to a low-key wine tasting tonight, but other than that, neither of us had anything scheduled. Instead going pedal-to-the-metal on my to-do list — which is what I usually do on weekends — I wrapped up some loose ends on projects I’d been working on, and in keeping with my current need to scale back on my project load, I didn’t start anything new. It was wonderful. I caught up on laundry, which gave me the opportunity to purge my closet of clothes that I didn’t really need anymore. I caught up on my skimming/reading list, which gave me a chance to figure out what I’m going to want to bite off next. And I cooked dinner for the first time in about forever, which let me experiment with some dishes I’ve had my eye on for a while. Because I didn’t have a huge list of things that I needed to pack in, I was able to be thoughtful about things I did choose to do.

For a lazy weekend, I got a surprising amount accomplished.

Picking Up Bits and Pieces From Everywhere

I’m an idea scavenger.

I have a very broad — if not always that detailed — memory. In our improv group, I’m the one who can remember what after the show scenes we did, even if I don’t always remember what happened in them. At work, I tend to say things like “That reminds me of article I read a while back; let me see if I can find again,” a lot. And in email discussions about certain features, I tend to recall who worked on particular areas of code a year or so ago, even when they sometimes don’t. It’s that last bit that I discovered only recently. I didn’t think of myself as having a good memory, because I usually forget a lot of details. I’ve come to realize, however, that I shouldn’t assume that other people have the same powers of recall for these kinds of things.

Because I do have this ability, I tend to expose myself to a broad array of material. I know I won’t remember all of it for later, but I will remember enough of it that I can track it down when I need it. This is one reason I skim every non-fiction book I buy as soon as I get it, even if I don’t read it in depth right away. Before it goes on the shelf, I pick enough meat off its bones to figure out what I’ll want to turn to it for later. It also means that I build a rich stew of ideas in my head, which interact and synthesize in interesting ways.

Something that I struggle with is that I tend to start a lot of sentences about things like this with “I read in one of Mike Cohn’s books that…” or “Keith Johnstone has talked about how…” I don’t do this to name-drop or to appeal to authority, which is how I worry it sometimes comes across. I do it to cite my sources and give people a handle on the idea, something to latch onto in case the idea seems familiar. I guess I’m just hoping that I’m talking to another scavenger who has come across the same morsels I have.

Update

Fitness: Ran 3 miles