Gluttony

I still have fleeting moments when I feel like I am having an out of body experience, floating above, watching the frantic happenings of my life. Day to day, I feel chaotic. Starting the day at 3:30 am with workouts, homeschooling two kids, racing around from one sport to another, trying to maintain a large house- it's nothing short of exhausting. I often wish I could slip into my six-year-old's world- steal a glimpse into his happy imaginative world and escape the reality of my own for a while.

Boxing with Gus has breathed new life into my workout routine. So has doing Crossfit. Exercise has always been my Happy Pill, and when I am less than excited to hit the pavement, water, or weights, I know it is time for a new drug. Enter Gus and his killer workouts. An hour of boxing with him one-on-one feels like a lifetime of torture- I love it. Slowly, however, I am winning over my tri buddies, and they are joining me in the ring and along side the bags. Interesting to me is how quickly each of us becomes "addicted" to the new rush in our veins. Nothing else has been sacrificed (boxing gym, to speed workout, to Crossfit and on to the pool) to make room for the new drug- we simply add it to our repertoire.

Is this an illness? Is it ever really enough? We want what we have, but then we want more. It's the American way. We're gluttonous, greedy savages, grasping for more than we already have, or maybe that is even good for us? Today's speed workout was one mile at 15K pace, followed by 8 400's, alternating between 5K and 10K pace continuously- no recovery, lactic threshold- and then another mile faster than the first. My legs are lead, but it's still not enough- I'm hungry for something else.

I like to think that somehow, having kids has found some sense of balance for me. If I never had kids, I would still be "using" exercise for up to six hours a day, stealing a run here, shifting an appointment for a swim there. It was easy to be selfish and self-absorbed when I was single. My life was about me and my workouts. My kids saved my life, in a way, or at the very least, maybe my knees.

I could never imagine a world without movement. I couldn't live in a still and sedentary world. I can't sit down long enough to put these thoughts in print. My attention span is that of a four-year-old and I move in sweeping motions through the house (you would think it would be cleaner?). Marc always tells me how proud he is to have a wife who is athletic and tries new sports. I tell him I am not doing anything heroic- it is only means of survival of the fittest. I am not fit to survive if I don't hammer it out everyday in some fashion.