10k

The 10k is my favorite and most dreaded workout. I do steady state 10ks about once a week. This is my last 10k and I thought it was gonna be a middling performance at best. I’d like to wrap one up in 40 mins and get my power steadily in the 180s.

Ride the wave.

You Can’t Be Liked by Everyone

This can be rooted in fear of rejection and an intense desire of wanting to be liked, but we’re never going to be liked by everyone. On top of that in many instances, people pleasers in can often end up feeling left out or rejected anyway, or resentful about feeling as though they give far more than they receive in return. Because they try to be everything to everyone, it also comes across as incredibly wishy-washy and that’s an unattractive quality to most people, because then you feel like you never get to really know that person. You’re missing out on creating lasting bonds, deep relationships, and cultivating that true connection.

People pleasing is the equivalent of going through life with a full body suit of armour on, and in a constant battle with yourself and with those around you rather than taking the armour off, experiencing a few wounds, and allowing the wounds to heal and growing stronger as a result.

The Dishonesty of People Pleasing

Raindrop.io Getting the PARA Treatment

I’ve been reading Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain and am intrigued by his PARA method. I’ve set up the home directory on my OneDrive account that way, and still have to finish this on my Mac. I’ve always had a sense of unease about how I organize (or don’t organize) files on my internal storage as well as in apps like DEVONThink (and now OneNote). My OneNote installation is set up using PARA; I’m committing to using [Raindrop.io][1] more mindfully and am setting it up now using PARA.

Zero Gain

The glass-is-always-half-empty angle of losing weight is worrying about gaining it back. This hobgoblin of the mind assails you most notably before a vacation, where you might not be able to exercise in the mode to which you have grown accustomed (read: addicted), and where you will probably eat and drink more than you would at home.

This happened to me for the first time when I started cycling; I knew I wasn’t going to take my bike on vacation back then, and was loathe to disappear for the 90 minutes to two hours most rides take.

The second time this happened, I had gotten into rowing, and again, knew that I wouldn’t be able to row. I did get a list of bodyweight exercises to try and did those on the beach.

This summer I once again found myself worrying about giving up my hard-won gains: would not exercising cause me to gain weight? Would I lapse into old habits?

Happily, though, I managed to do two things: keep it light on the food and drink, and exercise.

For the latter, each morning began with a walk, up the beach, then back up to the hotel. That was usually 2.5 miles. So 300-400 calories to start the day, minus some coffee on the way back. Easy and not surprising.

Walking Workouts
Walking Log

But the new discovery for me, thanks to the Apple Watch: swimming. Specifically, reading water.

In the hotel pool, on the first day of swimming, I saw that my watch was trying to record an outdoor swim. Once I told to watch to go ahead and record, I learned that just putzing around in the pool was burning around 100 calories every ten minutes. So a half hour was 300 calories, and you can do the math.

Swimming Workouts
Swimming Log

I actually got more exercise on vacation. Fear: unfounded.

I came home after one week in Ocean City, NJ, and after a hard 10k row, I weighed exactly what I weighed when I left.