In Motion We Find Joy

Thursday’s Bike Ride Commute and Friday’s Run (11/11-11/12/10)

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed again.  At work, there were so many things I could do, and I felt paralyzed by the task of making a decision.  On one hand, it’s great to have so many ideas and experiments on the table—it’s a wonderfully creative time in this project, and I love the sense of possibility.  On the other hand, I find myself stressed out by the huge amount of work that needs to be done.  It’s like I’m forgetting that just because I can do all of these things doesn’t mean I should do them all today.  In fact, I know that I cannot do all of them at once, that the only way to accomplish the goals is to spread them out and pace myself, just like I pace myself during a run.  I don’t do my 20-minute runs by sprinting for 2 minutes and then slogging my way through the remaining 18 minutes.  I try to maintain a more-or-less even pace, and that’s a strategy that works for me time and again.

Wow, writing that last paragraph was therapeutic.  It’s good to remember that there’s a sane person living inside of me somewhere.  In my state of psychofizz, exercise was truly a blessing on Thursday and Friday.  I did the usual bike ride commute on Thursday; the only unusual thing is that I wore shorts, because it’s really warm here again!  I hear the rest of the States is experiencing a heat wave, so I assume our Texas heat is part of that warm trend.  Still, I can’t believe I was back in shorts and sandals in November.  This place is crazy.

On Friday, the stress really got to me, and I almost started crying on the bus because I was feeling so overwhelmed and kinda beat down by the week.  But I held it together, and when I got home, I soothed myself with a very hearty snack of toast topped with peanut butter and bananas.  I think my tears may have been caused by hunger; I’ve been known to cry during times of calorie deprivation.  So I ate, and I drank some water, and I read a few posts from the March 2010 archives of What Would a Nerd Wear.  (I am loving this scarf and this whole outfit—nerds have the best style!)  Then I laced up my sneakers and ran outside for 20 minutes, and it was really therapeutic.  I imagined my stress as a slippery monster that kept trying to grab my feet, but I outran him, and it made me feel swift and powerful.  20 minutes was probably the perfect length of time for this run—enough to let me settle into the rhythm of running but short enough that it felt do-able after a long, draining week.

And now, I’m off to lab (again!), but then I get to go grocery shopping and settle into my Saturday.  Happy weekend, friends!