citizen of the planet

Whenever I go out for a run with my group, I’m always reminded of just how tough and determined they are.  For this Sunday morning, based on the schedule we were scheduled to do 18 kilometres.  I was looking at the map trying to figure out where to take them to add another two kilometres to the 16K route that we’ve done in the past.  That route was already rather hilly.  Since everyone seemed to be feeling strong on that route I decided to keep all of the ups and downs.  For the extra two, I decided to take them through two roads that have reputations for both being hilly and seemingly endless.  Perhaps the decision to take these roads is part of a sadistic side that I normally keep tucked away.  Whatever the case, I wanted to see how everyone would fare both physically and mentally.

A lot of the route came from snippets that we’ve all seen before.  It was just a little different seeing it all tied together.  Early on I knew that the run would be challenging.  The winds were a little bit strong and seemed to pummel us at various parts of the route.  Like I mentioned, there were a good number of up and downhill parts.  It was definitely challenging.  I could tell that everyone was feeling it late into the route, but we just kept on going.  All I wanted was for everyone to do their best.  It’s all I could ask for, right?

When we got back to the store, I started polling my group for their opinions.  I told each one of them that it was tough, and that I was definitely feeling a bit rough.  Just about everyone told me that it was a tough route, though no one was really sure if it was because of the hilliness, or if it’s more due to the resistance created by the wind.  Still, everyone really seemed proud of the fact that they completed the route.  There wasn’t a person there that seemed resentful.  My big comment to them was that if they could do such a hilly route so strongly then our goal race, which is a very flat course, will be absolutely no problem, which is true!  I know that my group is going to rock that race in March.

Note to self:

Instead of complaining that there aren’t enough hours in the day, I just need to work harder on budgeting my time better and not losing time here and there doing random things.  I’m not saying I should be more robotic and have things timed down to the second.  I mean, if I want to piss my time away, I need to own it.  However, I should not complain too loudly if it’s suddenly the end of Sunday and X, Y, and Z never got done.

Was talking with an old friend for the past few hours on the phone.  I’m glad that I did.  I mean, I have this decent phone plan and I don’t take enough advantage of it.  Plus, I figured that having some voluntary social contact with friends would do me some good.  Our conversation helped me to re-frame my perspective in a couple of areas.  For example, no matter how much I insist that I’m quite introverted, I actually lean more toward extroversion.

That really made me think about the whole improv class thing that I’ve been pursuing.  I’ve justified taking the class to myself by saying that I wanted to do something that was totally and completely out of my comfort zone.  That’s fine, and it makes me actions seem all that much more impressive.  However, if I were to just breathe out and take a step back to examine the situation, I’d realize that improv isn’t that far out of my wheelhouse at all.  With my propensity for loudness, the ability to act larger than myself, and the guts to be occasionally shameless, I’d say this all totally within reach.  I’m not saying it’s not challenging, because it damn well is, but I can say this doesn’t really make me crippled with fear.  Does that make sense?

When the team was larger, thing were a little bit more tolerable because at least the workload was more spread out.  Now, as our numbers are dwindling it’s just becoming more and more difficult.  This is especially true on a day like today that involved a code release.  Handling an eleven hour work day, with a good number of those hours on my own, is just too much.

*sigh*