Assorted gripes today, two rowing, one clothing, and one desk. In reverse
order:
Desk: My keyboard tray just caused my desk to eat my last
entry. The tray is only slightly below the level of the desk, but sometimes the
corner of the keyboard gets wedged under the desk. UNfortunately, this would be
the corner with the Esc key. Did you know pressing Escape causes a diary entry to
disappear? I do, now.
Clothing: I picked the wrong outfit
today. The top half is OK, but the bottom half includes a wrap skirt and heels.
The skirt is OK when I walk, unless there's a strong wind, but tends to fall open
when I sit, unless I arrange it very very carefully. I'll be teaching a class all
afternoon, and I usually alternate between standing (remember the heels?) and
sitting (remember the skirt?). And they're predicting some wind this afternoon, I
think.
Rowing 1, timing: I've said it before but this working for a
living thing gets in the way of my training. Had to row today because I have an
early meeting tomorrow. My 5K erg piece days get me in to work much earlier than
my 10K rowing days, even though I sleep until 4 on rowing days and 5 on erg days.
Getting up at 4AM on a Monday sucks.
Rowing 2, philosophical:
I knew that last race was the start of a slippery slope. Now I have to decide
whether to race again in about a month. It would be easier to say no if I hadn't
already raced once. The whole point of pulling back a bit was to cut my level of
burnout, and having to make decisions all the time doesn't help.What I need is a
firm policy, and there are three obvious ones: race; don't race; race but don't
take it seriously. Naturally there are pros and cons to each. Not racing would
lead to some very oring trips where I sit by a lake all day waiting to cheer for
Rudder or a fwe other people for a few minutes at a time. Therefore, I'm leaning
toward options 1 or 3. Option 1 clearly requires more training. As I realized in
discussion with Rudder, training harder is painful but no more stressful than
training lightly. The stress comes in knowing you have to train hard, and in
worrying whether you're training hard enough. On the other hand, option 3 requires
nothing but a willingness to look stupid (I won't fall in, but might finish DFL).
Possibly what I need is a point somewhere on the continuum from 1 to 3; plan to
train hard, but be kind to myself if I need a day off or a lighter day, or if my
race finishes aren't as good as I'd like.