It's a Monday morning and I'm sitting in a Second Cup café not wildly far from my house drinking a latte. It's got hazelnut syrup in it, and I'm glad they made it half sweet, because it's still wildly sweet. But, honestly, it's the level I like it at. So I guess I've figured out how to order it from here. However, it's unlikely I'll be back here too frequently.
I tried to use their Wifi unsuccessfully, so I'm using the Domino's guest network from next door. It's suiting me just fine.
I'm here, not writing anything in particular, although it'll probably get real in a few minutes, but rather just trying to work myself back into the habit of writing something.
The truth is, I haven't been at my best in the last few days, and likely a lot longer than that. I feel typically disappointed in myself, and have been working to recognize the line I reach when I quit, and driving myself passed it. Ultimately hearing the excuses I give myself, and saying "Nah, fuck that we're still good."
I did that at the gym this morning, and I'm pretty proud of myself for it. Having just gotten back from camping yesterday after calling it quits a day short, I was dejected and feeling like I needed some push. Rather than grabbing some of the typical music I listen to, I opted instead to see if there was anything from David Goggins, and it turns out there was! I've been working through his book and feeling progressively shittier about myself (in a good way?), and really felt like I could use a burst of motivation to get back at the gym, and try to push myself harder.
I'll take credit for it, but I'll give some to the "EP" I listened to, which was really just snippets of his talks set to some music, but I pushed harder than normal. Instead of my normal 2.6-2.8mph walk I started at 3.0 and went up to 3.2mph, still at a 5 incline (I dunno what that translates to). Following 15 minutes of that, with my heartrate pretty steady in the 150's, I went to do my hip mobility exercises, but also wanted to see "what am I capable of" while doing them. So I increased a bit of the difficulty, and where possible, did things like dumbbell presses and flyes during some exercises, or just a static hold of a 5lb weight while doing others that had me laying on one side.
It was tough. But I could take more. I found myself reaching the point where my brain asked "why am I here?" and I was able to answer with a resounding, "because you don't want to feel this way anymore". A clear and direct answer. Something I think was important.
I found a limit, I don't even know if I'd consider it a true 40% point, but it was the point my mind pushed against me and I pushed back. I kept thinking of the phrase "uncommon among uncommon". I'm so fucking far from that point. I'm not even uncommon among average. I'm smack dab below average. (I guess above average in weight? But let's not celebrate that.) So I'm going to fight my way to average. Then uncommon among average. Then try to find my way to uncommon among uncommon.
I'm giving it thought but may not commit to it entirely, but I'd like to do something like 75 Soft (I want to be able to enjoy social events, as they're rare in my life) -- which would involve working out for 45 minutes twice daily, once being outside, no alcohol outside of social events, a structured diet, drinking a bunch of water daily, and reading at least 10 pages of something (although I'd stick to the hard version and keep with non-fiction).
I don't have a good reason to not do this. And after feeling great after finishing my push beyond comfort this morning it feels foolish not to. I can't confirm it. I don't want to disappoint myself. But I'm thinking about it.
I'm going to wrap this up and go buy an apron or two, and maybe a roll of knives from a chef's store for our cooking class tonight.
I think my latte may have gotten cold while I wrote this.
<3 flurp