Dealing with disappointment? Ride hard.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Working out fulfills different purposes for me, depending on the day. Yesterday, I received some extremely disappointing professional news and went into an immediate funk. It was one of those blows to the solar plexus that buckles you over and causes you to take about five minutes to catch your breath. I was still trying to catch mine two hours later when I climbed on the bike for a ride.

I immediately attacked. I pushed the pace over the first ten miles of the ride and quickly took my mind off of my problems and put it squarely on the workout and how I was feeling, which was crappy. Since I had ridden hard the day before and hadn’t done long back-to-back rides since last fall, my legs were burning. I climbed the Iron Lung more slowly than the day before, but it took more effort. Still, I was totally enjoying the experience.

Exercise clears my mind. So many things came to me as I pedaled and pushed to keep the effort high. I managed a solid ninety minute ride and made some good decisions about what I needed to do to deal with the professional disappointment, something I would attack like I had the ride. I’d get the result I wanted or at least, make my position known. I’d do what I could.

I wasn’t done working out, though. I decided Dakota could benefit from a hike and so we went to the park and walked through what could be the last of the snow with camera in hand. I was hoping for another shot of the eagle that was cruising the marsh in search of a meal. I must admit that although the snow was not nearly as difficult to traverse, I was breathing heavily from the last three days of hard workouts. Exercise clears my mind, but beats up my body, too. It was an exhausting walk, but it felt good to know that I’d burned another bunch of calories.

I had to account for the two straight nights of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce and peanuts somehow.

Bike duration: 90 minutes. Hike duration: 60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm for bike. 80 bpm for hike.

Calories burned during workout: 1,350 for bike. 450 for hike.