When did this happen to you last??
...'cause I know it did!
We are endurance athletes!
What does that mean?; one of two things. We either have a lot of time we spend with a select few training buddies (whom we get REAL close with on many different topics) or we spend a lot of time in our own self-conscious. Either way...
We have a lot of time to think!
Sometimes those thoughts are totally normal; mental notes of things on the To Do List.
Sometimes they are funny; remembering a joke someone said awhile back and it feels new all over again.
And sometimes I think I'd be forced to meet with a psychiatrist if the things going through my head were projected outward.
Here are a few of my favorite more recent lines of thought during various workouts.
SWIM
I was doing a swim workout that had multiple 500 and 1000s in it. I am bad at counting laps! As a competitive swimmer, I used to have a friend be an unofficial counter for me during the 200 Breastroke. Yes, I would lose count going from 1 to 4. Anyways, I've found a variety of interesting ways to keep count - or more like keeping my interest in counting without my mind wandering off.
On this day, I decided that I could count each lap of my 500/1000s only using the word "Fifty." Here's what I came up with for 20 laps of the pool.
1 - Fifty (it's a 50, easy)
2 - Fifty Fifty (two 50s = 50 beyond 50 = 100)
3 - Fifty ("one 50" = 150)
4 - Fifty Fifty (50 beyond "one 50" = 200)
5 - Fifty Fifty ("two 50s" = 250)
6 - Fifty Fifty Fifty (50 beyond "two 50s" = 300)
7 - Fifty Fifty Fifty (50 short of "one 50" before half way = 350)
8 - Fifty Fifty Fifty (two 50s short of half way = 400)
9 - Fifty Fifty (one 50 short of half way = 450)
10 - Fifty (half way = 500)
11 - Fifty Fifty (one 50 beyond half way = 550)
12 - Fifty Fifty Fifty (two 50s beyond half way = 600)
13 - Fifty Fifty (one 50 [150] beyond half way = 650)
14 - Fifty Fifty Fifty (two 50s [250] and a 50 to go = 700)
15 - Fifty Fifty (half way beyond half way = 750)
16 - Fifty Fifty Fifty (one 50 [150] and a fifty to go = 800)
17 - Fifty (one 50 [150] left)
18 - Fifty Fifty (two 50s left)
19 - Fifty (one 50 to go)
20 - Fifty Fifty (There's about a 50% chance I counted that correctly!)
RUN
On a long, easy run, my mind tends to wander more than any structured run. On this particular day, I was half way through my run when I imagined myself running past my dad's house; the house I grew up in and my grand & great-grandfather built. In my mind, the house looked just as it had before, but my dad had sold the house; I must have been back to visit friends.
As I run down the street, I stopped on the side of the road to take in the memories of my childhood. As I stood there, a couple came out of the house. They saw me and asked if they could help at all. I told them that I had grown up in the house. "You must have been here when they built it" they told me. No, that was a generation before me.
The conversation immediately went into details about the house.
- The house was built in the mid to late 1960s.
- The porch was an addition, originally intended as a garage.
- The trees were planted when the house was built, but half of them torn down later.
Turns out, this couple was not those that my dad sold the house to. That couple had turned around and sold the house quickly to the current residents with very misleading information. They were told the house was built in the late 1980s and they paid a significant amount more than it may have sold for otherwise.
Before I left, I gave them my dad's number so that they could get more accurate information. They were incredibly thankful and I headed back out to finish my run.
As I made it back home (to my real apartment), I was amazed at the amount of info I recalled about the house.
BIKE
Have you ever wanted to redesign your room, apartment, house, or office? One of my favorite stations (when I'm somewhere that has cable), is HGTV.
While on my bike, all of my thoughts came to mind.
- My bed takes up a lot of space in my room. A futon would make more sense.
- I could use that extra space for workout gear and storing my bikes.
- When I moved in to my apartment, I loved the idea of using part of my long closet as a reading nook. I should try that out.
- If I find the closet comfortable for reading, I bet I could sleep in there - save a LOT of room!
- If I sleep in the closet, I could get an oversized chair to read in.
- My desk has always felt insufficient for studying and projects. I'd like to have a corner desk.
- I've always wanted to have a large white board - or better yet a large glass panel just like college study sessions on windows.
- I measured the closet width. 27.2" wide.
- I found a company that makes 26.5" wide beds. Surprisingly cheap too.
- I checked craigslist for futons and an oversized chair (I'm a craigslist addict!)
- I started designing a corner standing desk. I might be able to get my dad to help me build one to my specifications.
This is what goes through my head! And that's just scratching the surface. Go ahead - commit me!!
Freakin' Hilarious!!
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