Fitness, Time & Beauty and Me…

Training for a 70.3 Ironman is a fitness challenge that requires a Plan, a Calendar and, in my case, lots of scribbled notes to remind me of one thing or another…

My Plan, from Triathlon Geek, is the same one I used in July 2010, when I competed in my first and only 70.3.

Until now.

My Calendar for the June 2014 Eagleman Endurafit 70.3 began on January 13, 2014, when I began training for my second 70.3…

To me, it’s all about Fitness. Fitness, as in feeling alive with movement and challenge, both in body and mind… things that scare me and excite me and that make me hear my blood pumping.

Time. Time, as in taking 24 hours and planning for and sometimes even barely squeezing in a planned workout. Time to think, all alone with my thoughts.  And then those times when my family/grandkids’ activities/events/spontaneous visits supersede any workout at all. These are “heart” days on my calendar. These are the days that I cherish, too.

And Beauty. Not Beauty in the personal Beauty way; but Beauty in what Fitness and Time bring to me, personally.

Take yesterday, for example.

My training Plan called for 40 minutes: Stationary Indoor Bike Ride, with very specific leg drills and recovery.

I headed to my local YMCA for this bike ride, but when I got there every bike was being used and reserved for the next hour, as well.

“Ugh.” I headed home. Here I had some allotted Time for this bike ride before an important appointment. You know.

I seriously pondered riding outside, in all 25 degrees of this very frigid day.

I said, “Nah,” to myself.

Then I said, “Why not?”

My bike wasn’t too buried in my garage…

I dressed very warmly for this outdoor ride, including slipping on my new Pearl Izumi booties and layers of body warmth…

… and headed toward the Bike Path ~

Um.

That would be a no-go.

SO I headed along another path, a road that follows the curves of our lovely harbor…

Its Beauty took my breath away!

The rocks were painted with white crystals of ice – looking like Mother Nature herself had tossed thousands of diamonds upon them – dazzling.

Dazzling.

I pedaled toward the park and up the hill, pedaling hard; feeling the cold nipping at my fingers and toes and nose, but not the turning-back-and-going-home cold. I pedaled toward the bay…

It was so quiet and so still… much like a huge living mural. And so filled with Beauty.

I pedaled on, listening to the seagulls overhead and seeing the vast blueness of the calm Bay. My eye caught something orange in the middle of all that blue, kind of like a child got his or her hand on a paintbrush and dotted in a tiny splash of color, just for fun…

It was a fisherman in a little boat, a lone fisherman on the Bay this day, wearing orange pants. Yep. Those orange pants were a child’s dream color!

I pedaled on.

Carefully.

Maybe not as fast as I would have with all the technology of a stationary bike at the Y.

I pedaled on.

Very carefully, I might add.

Avoiding icy patches.

Mostly in the shade…

I couldn’t help but think of the irony in seeking shelter from the shade.

This path is a fun part of my summer runs where I always seek shelter from the sun!

Then it was Time to head home.

That 40 minutes on my bike, pedaling outside in the cold and discovering all that Beauty at my fingertips.

This is why I do these things.

Fitness.

Time.

And Beauty.

The Beauty part, that personal gift of breathing in all the Beauty that the universe offers every single day.

This is why I do these things, like training for a 70.3 at 61 years old!