Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Training Brain. It keeps me coming back for more!


As is true for many of us, my brain is stuffed full (and then some) with the usual tangle of multitasking working mom thoughts. It's crazy in there. It's full of lists, to-dos, daily/weekly/monthly calendars, passwords, PINs, birthdays, philosophies, tasks, how-tos, tricks, training schedules, race goals, account balances, clothing sizes....

You would not want to live in my brain. There isn't any room for you anyway. There's barely room for me.

I get a delightful reprieve from it all when I train. For me, that is one of the major rewards of the multisport life, and the reason I train on a near daily basis. I love the simple headspace of my training brain!



All the chatter of daily life gets pushed aside when I swim, bike, run, or strength train. I think about technique, how I feel, my effort, my goals, my mindset. I may count strokes or steps or breaths. On the hardest of efforts that is all I can do. That is all I care to do.

But on the easier efforts, with a little less need to attend to mechanics, there is room for a select few new thoughts to find their way in. You probably know about this! This is the space where creativity can happen, problems can be solved, and peace can be found.

A thought space forms and sometimes that thought space gets filled in the most peculiar ways.

Case in point:

The main set of Tuesday's swim was taking all I had to stay on pace (translation: taking all I had to keep up with lane mate Janet) and so I was really focusing on finishing my stroke and using more of my tricep on that final push.

this is not me. 


I must have let up a little, because a thought space opened up, and I heard my brain say:

 "It's fine if your triceps get tired, it's not like you have to go slice cheese all day." 

Cheese slicing? Where in the world did that thought come from? It was hard to keep from laughing.



Then on yesterday's run I found a fresh (and successful) approach to a problem I was having with WordPress (solved one problem, thirty seven more to go!).

I love getting my regular "fix" of Training Brain. It reboots, refreshes, reprioritizes, and sometimes just gets silly. And like any powerful drug it's got me conditioned to come back for more.

So if you are looking for a legal drug that makes your brain feel amazing, might I suggest swim, bike, or run?