Day off!

Gotta love the day off! And I mean a day off from training. And notice that I didn’t say “working out”. Although I don’t have a motivation issue where exercise is concerned, I find it helpful to be mindful of the language that I use to describe things [Note: watch out all of you who have used the word “loser” or “failure” in your blogs lately – I’m coming after you!].

The term “working out” has such negative connotations for me. It signifies pain and discomfort and punishment. The term “training” has so much more of a positive spin to it: “I’m training for triathlon,” or, “I’m training for a healthier, fitter body.” Doesn’t that sound so much better?

OK, when you’re dragging your ass to the gym and you truly don’t want to go, I can see that one might see this as merely semantics, but it works for me.

Training also implies that you are working to achieve a goal, rather than just doing the work for the work’s sake. It makes the goal a lot more tangible. Although on that note, I would say that having some other goal, rather than “losing X pounds” is more rewarding and less prone to setbacks.

So, today is my day off from training and it was well earned. I kind of like having my day off being a Thursday – that way I get a little mini-break in the middle of the week. Most people take Monday off since the weekends are usually heavy training days. But I would struggle to get through the week if I didn’t have Thursday to look forward to. And I would never consider taking a weekend off as that’s where all the fun training is! This week, I’m going to ride 75K on Saturday and run for 90 minutes on Sunday (although I’m not sure when I’m going to fit that in as I’m going up to Peterborough to watch some friends race on Sunday).

And what am I doing on my day off? Well, I’m eating cookies, that’s what I’m doing! And not just one cookie… three of them! There was a little going-away party for a co-worker and cookies were ordered. I had one (chocolate chip). Then after the party I took “one for the road” (oatmeal raisin). Then, about 2 hours later, I went back for a third (some kind of nut thing). Damn you, vile cookies! Aargh! But they were very good (although not as good as the home-made ones I ate all last weekend). Give me anything with flour, sugar, eggs, butter and chocolate and I go weak in the knees. I always succumb to temptation. I don’t know why those things have such power over me, although I would suspect that for the most part it’s simply a result of boredom. I did have a healthy breakfast, snack and lunch. It was just those damned cookies taunting me that I couldn’t resist.

This evening, I went out for dinner with my extended family, and I wasn't very good about not overindulging. But calories don't count when you eat them off someone else's plate, right?

I’ve made an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow afternoon. It’s looking like a big ol’ mess right now, so it’s just in time. But I’m going to a new place since it’s right downstairs from the office and I don’t have any time to go any other time. The timing is not ideal as I’ll be riding my bike to/from work tomorrow and going for a swim after work, so my hair will look like crap within an hour of it being done! Oh well…

Tour update: There was a big crash towards the end of today’s stage. Luckily, Lance managed to stay out of it, but one of his rivals was able to make up some time on him. No worries… the mountains are coming in a couple of days.