Pace Yourself

So this morning I ran sprints. I actually Googled “interval training” and went out in the lightly falling snow and sprinted. Earlier in the week, I went to Body Pump at my local gym and spent an hour bicep-curling, lunging, and dead-lifting to cheesy, outdated songs. I hadn’t lifted a single weight—unless you count a 27-pound toddler and a 14-pound baby?—since 2009, and I woke up the next day with wobbly quads and a sense of accomplishment that did not match the accomplishment.

relaxing while riding—the perfect balance?!

Twice this week I put my climbing skins on my skis and hiked up to the towers at the Ski Basin, even though we’d been having a mini Ice Age and temperatures had barely topped zero for days. Because temperatures had barely topped zero. I’m not bragging. I’m just saying: These days I’m craving risk, adventure, anything new and exciting. Not drama—I’m done with drama for now—but something that might, in some farfetched way, be considered “extreme.” I know, the whole undertaking smacks a little of desperation. Am I having a mid-life crisis?

The sprints felt good: four 30-second intervals, with two minutes of moderate running between each. I felt like I could have done more, but I held myself back. Like motherhood, fighting your way back to something resembling peak fitness is a marathon, requiring endurance and mental stamina and Pollyanna-ish reserves of patience you never thought you had. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a stress fracture in your foot, sweet potato in your hair, and a hissy-fitting toddler flinging fistfuls of applesauce around the room, and you will be quite sure you’re losing your mind, or have already lost it.

I’m not exactly sure where this is all headed, only that I am trying as always to find the slippery tipping point between pushing hard and letting what’s supposed to emerge emerge: in adventure, writing, and motherhood. When does ambition become a handicap? When does following the flow become too passive? When I figure out the magic formula, I’ll let you know. Meantime, it’s a long haul and I’ve got to pace myself. Or burn out trying.