Lessons learned

One of the things I’ve been doing lately is writing up my “lessons learned”. Most of them are obvious duhs, but even so I find it useful to have them articulated. Here are this week’s, with a note on how I learned each lesson.

Mon., May 7/07: If I’m going to be “on site”, I should bring healthy food. (Did not learn this lesson for Tues., May 8.)

I spent several hours at one of Toronto’s busiest subway stations supervising installation of farecard equipment, and neglected to bring anything to eat; this left me wandering into the adjacent food court and getting something from, er, McDonald’s. Despite doing this two days in a row, I neglected to do anything about it on the second day.

Tues., May 8/07: It may be trying too much to swim Mon. night & do bike work-out early Tues. morning. Alternately, I may not have been well.

After a good swim work-out Monday night I had no energy Tuesday morning for my trainer work-out—but I’m now pretty sure that I was—and to a degree remain—a bit sick.

It’s not worth the dubious “convenience” of wearing business-casual clothes on the bike. I soiled and tore the drive-side cuff of my khakis.

On a beautiful spring day I was trying to save the time of changing from bike clothes to street clothes (& back in the evening) for a mere 4.3-mi, 7.0-km commute. As I note, I just don’t find it so convenient.

Wed., May 9/07: Rest between work-outs is valuable to Ironman training. Standing for 5½ hours without a single break was not wise.

My Ironman buddy is in awesome shape, but takes the elevator & sits when he can. In the presence, I’ll guess, of all those hard workers from the Transit Commission and our contractor, I didn’t want to be sitting down. But I should’ve; between that lack of rest and a virus, I could do nothing: I skipped both swimming and even Pilates.

Fri., May 11/07: No matter how “out of sorts” I feel, a work-out can often be surprisingly good, and feel surprisingly good.

Well before dawn on Friday morning I sure did not feel like a 90-minute swim work-out, but I went with the expectation that I’d quit pretty quickly. Yet the moment I dove into the water I felt good, and in the end had a great work-out—and felt great the rest of the day.

Sat., May 12/07: 40 oz (1200 ml) of beer is not good preparation for an early-morning long run.

monado and I had a nice dinner at Gabby’s on the Danforth that involved sharing a pitcher of beer. Despite my low tolerance of alcohol, I was nowhere near drunk or even tipsy when we got home, and I went to bed pretty quickly, but I’ve been barely motile since—13 hours in bed, and I still feel like having another nap, not doing the 90-minute easy run I’m scheduled to do.