Nirvana

Today was a great day.

My job and day to day schedule does not lend itself to me having many days I am simply in love with. The three most likely combinations to cause me to be euphoric are the occasional fast food and movies in bed with CB day, an outdoor sports day (kayaking, mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, or backpacking), or a training day.

A few months ago I was looking at ITU races and started wondering about how Olympic triathletes train. I found an article (have not been able to find it again) interviewing a handful of Olympic triathletes and asking about their daily schedule. Most all of them said that most days are two workouts, either two easy or one hard and one easy, separated by a half a day or so. Most of them also said that one of their mid-day habits was a nap, whether on the couch with the dogs, in the bed, in a lawn chair in the sun etc. Since reading this article I have structured close to a dozen of my vacation or personal leave days in this fashion (only days when I am off and CB is working); this is what I referred to above as a training day. I have found that it leaves me in a great place mentally.

I slept in this morning until 9:30 and any day not having to wake up and jump up in a hurry is a good way to start the day. I woke up slowly watching both the end of the local news and the beginning of the national news. Both broadcasts had a stories about the MLK memorial in DC set to open in August. This was a good start to the day for me. Not only are civil rights, human rights, and equality important to me (in ways I can not even put to words) but this project is too. Although I clearly was not around for the civil rights movement or to ever to be in the same place as MLK, I am proud that he was my fraternity brother. His works are one of the motivation factors for me choosing my fraternity (as well as Thurgood Marshal's works). With this relationship with MLK, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.  (my fraternity) spearheaded the fundraising and project management for the memorial. I have personally worked toward the fundraising for this memorial as well as donated toward it (actually my donation was mandatory, but the fundraising wasn't). It was cool to see it on the news after I started working on the project 9 years ago.

After my warm fuzzy moment was over, I headed to a pool for a swim. Today was my long day-2,475 meters. This was my longest swim ever.  It was tough but I got it done.

After getting finishing I headed to the house where I pet the pooches, vacuumed and laid down for a nap.

After the hour nap I regrouped and set out for a 90 minute ride. This workout was not scheduled, I did it as a make up for a missed ride from before I got the bike and also for the fun of it. I decided I would just ride laps around the neighborhood for the 90 minutes. After 30 minutes I was cold and felt like another nap so pulled over at the house when it I passed it. I gave serious thought to quiting, but thought this would be a great time to HTFU. I ran inside and grabbed a water bottle and instead of setting back out on the neighborhood I rode the local tri course in my small ring. It felt so slow, but I wanted it to be easy. I was also freezing. I picked up toe covers this weekend and although they worked out for yesterday's workout fine, they left my toes cold again.

Once home I showered, extra long to warm back up, then lounged and read while watching my favourite show on dvd (entourage) until dinner. A dinner of wheat spaghetti to aid with recovery.

A perfect day. Hopefully this will let me cruise into work tomorrow still riding my high.

I hope everyone else has had just a great day and can have a week as good as my day was.