A New Leaf

I do try to stay away from big pronouncements and (New Year's) resolutions, but I am glad to note that I replaced my swim goggles with a brand that actually works.  The first time back in the water I only managed 8 laps, though I had hoped for 10.  The second time back I did make 10 laps.  I probably would have swum last Wednesday, but I needed to wash the swim trunks.  I had planned to swim on the way home from work on Friday, though it turned out that the lap swimming was much later than I thought and it was a leisure swim period.  Since my daughter (somewhat surprisingly) has been very interested in going swimming, I decided I would see what the leisure swim set up was like.  It turned out that the Regent Park Aquatic Centre is set up to have a fairly large shallow area, probably twice the space that the Matty Eckler pool has.  Then there is a middle area basically set up to do short laps.  Then they have an area to practice diving.  Since I was there fairly early, I claimed some space in the middle section and worked on building up endurance, i.e. how many short laps I could swim without a break.  I don't know if this ended up adding up to 10 or 12 full-length laps, but it was a decent workout.  They also have a spa area open, though only for swimmers 17+, which will be a sore temptation for my daughter.

In addition to this new-found interest in swimming, my daughter had been pestering me to race her.  I've never been a particularly fast runner, but I had pretty good stamina for middle distance running in my 30s.  I finally broke down and bought a new pair of running shoes, since my gym shoes were starting to get worn down in the heels.  There's an elementary school with an actual track around the corner from us, so we went there.  Sad to say, she was much faster than I was, though she can only keep it up for about a lap.  On our second outing (the following week), she was able to run the first lap quickly, then rested while I ran laps 2 and 3, then she jogged with me on the 4th lap.  I told her that in general, she should work on endurance, and this is also the area where she will see the most immediate improvement.  We did do some jogging in the neighbourhood, with her again having to stop about halfway through with a stitch in her side.  She asked if we could jog every morning.  I didn't think she could stick with it, and indeed this morning she didn't get up in time (and she wanted to take a longer shower), but we may jog after I get home from work.  I do want to encourage her in this, but temper it with realistic expectations of how often she'll actually feel like running (maybe every other day instead of every day) and how fast she'll be able to run.

She was a bit disappointed that she couldn't join my gym right away and try out the treadmills, since she is a bit too young.  But I guess I can sign her up on her birthday, and then take her after work during the winter, though it will probably mess up my routine, since I prefer to lift weights and then do the stationary bike and don't use the treadmill at all.  Keeping her active and relatively happy is an important goal, however, so I'm sure we can figure something out.

She is also quite interested in doing yoga as well, but I said that I would leave that up to her mother, since I don't know the first thing about yoga and don't intend to start now.  It's definitely quite a turnaround from before, but a good change so long as it lasts.