There are things about my job that I really like. The product we make is exceptional, we are on the cutting edge of technology, and I work with some very intelligent people. The flip side? A lot of mistakes have been made in the past, a foreign subsidiary was started with some less than honest partners, and it is all sort of coming to a head. We need to work through a lot of things and I've been thrown into the middle of it. Some of it I am handling well and some of it I am not handling as well. I have made some mistakes. Last night, the mistakes just kept rolling through my brain, one after another after another. I hate making mistakes at work, probably because they impact so many people. Last night, at about 1:30 in the morning, I couldn't get back to sleep because I kept thinking of all of the things I should have done differently.
My rational brain tells me to not be so hard on myself. There is a binder full of reasons why the events of the last year unfolded the way that they did and all of them were set in motion long before I walked in the door. Still, my brain gravitates towards the things I could have done differently. My tossing and turning woke Jack up at about 2:30 and he was able to help calm me down and finally I drifted back off to sleep around 3:00. Nights like that are rough.
Luckily, I had already decided that today was my day off, so I didn't need to get up early. I got plenty of sleep last night in spite of my tossing and turning since we went to bed early and I didn't get out of bed until after 6:00. With any luck at all, tonight will be a better night.
Jack and I had an exceptional afternoon at the K! Did you see that ball game? Score 0 to 0 going into the 10th. Texas was held scoreless in the 10th inning. Then we end up with bases loaded, 2 outs, and a full count with Justin Maxwell hitting against our ex-closer, Soria. Talk about tense! Then Maxwell hits it out of the park. A HUGE WALK OFF GRAND SLAM HOME RUN to win the game, win the series, give us a guaranteed winning season, keep us statistically alive for the wild card slot, and finish our last home game of the season. The crowd erupted!!!! It was by far my most exciting moment at a ball game. What a blast!!
Even before the spectacular 10th evening, we were having a lovely afternoon. The weather was perfect and we were enjoying each others' company. I, in particular, was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. It's amazing how I feel after a really hard workout like yesterday's brick. For the rest of the day I am filled with a sense of peace and joy. On my ride yesterday I ended up riding with a fellow cyclist for a while and we talked about the difference between training to get faster and just riding for seat time. When I was training for the AIDS Lifecycle ride, it was all about being able to get 100 miles done in a day, and riding long distances 7 days in a row. That is a certain kind of training. You have to pace yourself and really condition your body to spending all day in the saddle. It's kind of fun. You spend all day with friends, stop for coffee and lunch, and see a lot of beautiful scenery. It's extremely time consuming and after a while you realize that your whole life is about cycling, but that's OK because it's fun. Training for speed is completely different. I am not on my bike nearly as long, but the whole time I am on my bike I am pushing it and getting a serious cardio-vascular workout. I'm trying to condition myself to go faster and push harder. My fellow rider and I agreed; riding for speed for 24 miles is not fun, it's work. On the other hand, the residual effect of the workout is completely worth the 90 minutes of hard work. Thinking about this makes me realize that "having fun" and "happiness" don't necessarily go together. I've read about this and thought about this, before. You can do fun things, but you realize that while you feel a momentary sense of glee while you are doing them there is no lasting impact on your level of overall happiness. Yet when I do something very hard, like yesterday's brick, I am not having any fun at all, but for the rest of the day and several days afterwards, I have an underlying sense of happiness. My sister said she discovered this about five years ago, that she has to challenge herself either physically or intellectually almost every day to be happy. I am beginning to understand what she is talking about. Yes, I often have to drag myself onto my bike and into my running shoes, but once I've done it I am always glad I did.
Food continues to be fine. I don't have my phone in front of me at the moment so I don't know my exact calorie counts for the last couple of days, but they were within my target range. My weight was 154.2 again this morning. I am shooting for being below 153.8 by Sunday morning, to stay below my line.
Fall is here. I'm starting to look for warm cycling gear because I am committed to working out outside on as many weekends as possible through the winter. I'm not looking forward to the cold weather, but I am looking forward to indoor training even less. I'm hoping for a mild winter!!
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