Saturday, February 5, 2011

We wear many shoes

To wear many hats means to have many roles, which is true of all of us age-groupers.  We have jobs, families, homes, civic and volunteer roles, and maybe even another hobby or two!  But I think we are better described by our shoes than our hats. Our shoes (and boots) can be utilitarian (my trainers), make us faster (racing flats), make us think we are faster (zoomers), increase efficiency (cycling shoes), get us off our feet (yes, I saved the cast), keep us from running (boot), protect our feet (flip flops), and occasionally make us look professional (boring black shoe).



Today I had much to celebrate.  First of all, I retired the boot and set out today in two matching shoes! What a cool/odd sensation!  It isn't often that your own body part feels foreign and that a shaped footbed seems bizarre and very tall. But honestly I feel great and celebrated with a 70 minute trainer ride on my own bike for the first time in 7 weeks and a fun workout at the gym with Jake.

The second thing I had to celebrate was wrapping up a very successful pedagogy conference -- two days, 600 attendees from 11 countries, and very few hiccups! For weeks I have not thought beyond February 4 and today I have been a zombie. It explains the lack of blog postings.

As the chair/organizer I gave up trying to participate IN the conference so I missed the keynote speaker, Terry Doyle. The main takeaway point everyone seemed to leave with was that to get the most from our minds we need to work our bodies too. I'll second that.

Similarly, I am grateful for the many shoes of my life. I firmly believe my work makes me a better athlete and my athletics make me a better contributor at work.

The more my work schedule challenges my training schedule the more determined I become to fit it all in!  I did not schedule workouts for the conference days on Thursday and Friday but I still managed to get my 4 swims, 2 rows/bikes, and 3 strength training workouts in for the week. I also packed my food for the conference knowing a big shift in eating would jeopardize my energy levels.  As a result I felt great and maintained an even keel throughout.

I look forward to getting back to "normal" (is there such a thing?) on Monday with work and training. It's time to see what I've got with this leg and what it can do in the next 2-1/2 months!