Fit to Be...

Super Awesome Wife and Dirtbag Baby are on the mainland right now visiting her family. I'm still on island because we decided I should save sick days for Mommy/Baby Needs Daddy days. So I'm home alone. On my run today I got to thinking about what I would say to a person if they asked me why they should get fit. I think it's a good question, what would you say? Do you have real reasons for being fit? I spent the run thinking about that and came home and wrote it out. Then I decided that instead of just posting words, like normal, I'd play around with the camera built into the computer and make it into a simple video. For fun. Because this should be fun. So below is the video and below that is the text from the video. Thanks for playing along!

Fit to Be

Fit is variable.
Fit is mental.
Fit is an idea.
Fit to be...
Fit to be healthy.
Fit to be dedicated to a goal.
Fit to be balanced. To expend negative energy in positive ways.
Fit to have a reason not to sit on the couch after sitting at work.
Fit to be a parent who’s kids grow up with fitness.
Fit to learn limits. Fit to learn to surpass limits.
Fit to accomplish something every day.
Fit to be sexy? No. Sexy is an external value placed on you by others. Fit is not always sexy.
Fit to be self confident then. Self confidence is always sexy. Fit builds self confidence.
Fit to conquer and subdue ego. Fit to build a healthier ego.
Fit to be accepting weakness in yourself and others. Fit to know weakness is not a permanent state.
Fit to be happy. To quote a guilty pleasure, “Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands, they just don't.”
Fit to eat the occasional pint of ice cream after a long day.
Fit to be better at suffering. Fit to understand pain passes eventually, but not always easily.
Fit to be in control of something in your life. Fit to have something to hold to.
Fit to be better than you were the day before and understanding sometimes that just isn’t possible. Fit means going again anyway.
Fit to be free.

Reasons Aren't Excuses

Run
2.3mi
23 minutes

I did not run far today, and I did not do it fast. I was sucking wind by the halfway point and my inner knee started to give me trouble around then too. There's a slight climb early in the course that destroyed my pace. My form felt wonky.
And I should not be frustrated by any of that.
The last time I ran was 19 days ago, during the Christmas Biathlon. That day my son was born. I've worked out maybe twice since. I've been busy doing other things like learning about the new human in my house. So there has been quite a lot of sitting on my ass. There has been too much snacking.
Of course my run sucked. Garbage in, garbage out.
I'm in the unique, for me, position of trying not to be frustrated and put off by bad performance and by a feeling of high effort/poor result. Getting back into the groove after time off is always hard and I haven't seriously workout out since the Honu. Of course, the Honu seriously fucked up what my internal version of "serious workouts" are, so maybe that's not true. Either way, I don't feel fit right now, and I know it is going to take a lot of work to get back to what I consider baseline fitness. I think I might register for the next two events in the Biathlon Series. There's one in two weeks and one at the start of February. Maybe having those, plus the Warrior Dash, will help me get up and get moving.
But right now I'm interested in staying positive and trying to get back into a regular workout schedule. The hardest part of working out is putting on your shoes. I see the mountain. I've been up it before. I just need to put on my shoes.