Dearest Rachel –
No, I didn’t wake up with either of these groups’ (and doesn’t the combination sound like an interesting band name in and of itself?) music in my head this morning, like a proper earworm. But I realized that I’d started off the day – ended last night, in fact – by giving off good intentions (yes, I know the actual song is “Good Vibrations,” but bear with me; as soon as my mind put the expression together, the music just slid in underneath it)… and once you think of “good intentions,” you automatically think of where those lead…
All right, while you try to get one or the other of those songs out of your head, I’ll fill you in on what lead to it all. To be honest, it’s a fairly ordinary one – which is kind of welcome, as it’s nice to get back to a routine after a couple weeks interrupted by the holiday ‘schedule’ – but also embarrassing to have to admit that I can’t seem to do what’s good for me when I ought to.
After getting home from the folks last night, we were greeted by Logan. Not immediately, as he was up in his room when we arrived, but rather soon thereafter. He had been downstairs while we were out to try out the treadmill (and it seems to have worked just fine for him, despite its supposed weight limit. To be fair, he only uses it for walking; he only set it at two miles an hour as opposed to the brisk four or five that I try to work with), and expressed appreciation for my permission. He did ask about lowering the rate of incline – just out of curiosity, I think – and while I indicated the adjustable supports, I suggested that he not mess with them, as it burns more calories for the both of us to be walking upwards rather than on a flat surface, and he appeared to agree.
Friday being a non-work day for him, he was able to stay up, rather than going to bed at nine, so he and Daniel headed to the family room to watch stuff together, leaving me on my own. Having discussed all this with Logan, I decided I might as well just go to bed in my T-shirt and shorts, so I could just get up and exercise that much earlier this morning, and get it over with that much sooner – or go that much longer, as I fully expected to stay at home to work out, as it had been raining (in January!) rather fiercely that evening.
But being January, we’re still in the depths of the darkest part of winter; the days are slowly lengthening, but they’re still crazy short, compared to summer. Despite having gone to bed before ten (I think I was up past nine, but I’m not sure…), it was still too dark when I first broke through into consciousness, and I immediately proceeded to roll back over and go to sleep again, without so much as bothering to try to find out what time it was. The first that I actually bothered to look at a clock, it was well after six; imagine sleeping for basically nine hours straight, honey. Such luxury; such laziness. Even so, that twinge of guilt about lying around in bed for so long wasn’t enough to get me onto the treadmill for another hour after that yet.
To be fair, once I had things up and running (pardon the expression), I did put in the time and effort; while I really need to find a podcast that I can half-watch for at least sixty and probably closer to ninety minutes – since having to stop my session in order to change one video out for another is a real nuisance – I pushed through a little more than six miles over three separate sessions. It’s not quite the same burn level as I might get at the gym, but it amounts to something, anyway.
Sure, it means I’m barely to the ‘office’ by eleven, after washing up and taking a leisurely breakfast, but I guess I have that kind of time to spare, when you come down to it. So maybe I shouldn’t be beating myself up about the fact that my good intentions didn’t lead to me cracking out six-and-a-half miles in a single hour-and-a-half ending at eight in the morning. I got most of that done, after all, if rather later in the day than originally intended. Timing doesn’t matter as much in my life, these days.
On the other hand, I do have a few things I ought to get done yet today, so I will have to sign off at this point, honey. Keep an eye on me, and wish me luck, as I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 