Taking advantage of the unusual trifecta of early bedtimes for both girls, great weather, and a little bit of energy in my legs, I took to the roads for my longest rollerski of the summer so far - 80 minutes, covering 14.23 miles (22.91 km) at a pace of 10.59mph.
It was not a great workout, but it was fun, and it gives me the pretext to respond to a recent blog post by my friend Matt, newly bitten by the triathlon bug, about his motivation for getting back into the fitness swing of things. With high school cross-country and track in our distant pasts and young daughters at home, we have some things in common, and we have some according overlap in our reasons for trying to get back into shape. The main thing that, as Matt might say, gets my arse outside to work out on a daily basis is just seeing my mileage and time pile up. It's a shallow impulse, but one that works quite well. I know that if I run or rollerski for an hour that I'll be able to book another 5 or 10 miles (respectively - even more when I count kilometers!) in my log. I'm also hoping that putting in some time now will mean that, when family schedules change a bit, I can run a long race or, even better, ski one. The Mora Vasaloppet is a near-term goal.
Slightly deeper, as motivations go, is the desire to be out in something like nature for a while. Until they hook me up with a MacBook at work, I have to stay pretty much in my office all day long. Getting out at night or on weekends to pound through the Arb or grunt up the rural hills is a refreshing change of scenery. Somewhere between the shallow and the sublime are the physical outcomes: it's nice not to be achy and tired after a day sitting at a desk (or rather, to be achy from a run, not from sitting down), and it's nice to feel my bike commute getting easier and easier from week to week as I get into shape.
Finally, it is very nice to think - okay, hope, right now - that when Julia sees me come back from a rollerski or hears Shannon and me talk about our runs, she (and eventually in her sister) is acquiring a sense that being active is a normal, fun part of life, on a par with eating good things and reading books and having parties - and of course, sleeping.