Uphill battle

So there are various things I told myself I wanted to accomplish during my time back here at home.



First was to wake up early. I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, but I know that I always tend to have more energy throughout the day when I wake up early. This goal has been going quite well. The latest I have slept in has been 9:30, but most days I have been up before nine.



The second was not necessarily go on a diet but be a lot more conscious of the various food items I was depositing into my body. Living at home has made that endeavor much more feasible. Up at school I am so busy and find myself going out way to often and I really do not care much for fast food. My parents keep a lot of healthy stuff in the house so I figure after eating so well here for a month it will just be second nature when I go back up to Phoenix.



I also wanted to read a lot of good writing and do a lot of writing myself. This has also been going pretty well. I have some good books that are a collection of some great sportswriting, feature stuff like the kind of work I would ultimately like to do. I am also working on memoir of my childhood athletic prowess or lack there of.



Lastly, and the one I knew would take the most effort, is to get into an excersise routine. When I was in high school I remember how good I always felt after a long cross country practice, as much as I wanted to quit during practice, because I knew I was in shape. Now I can't get myself to work out despite how good I know it feels to do it. Today I decided it was time to really start. I went on about a 7-8 mile bike ride, not treacherous but a good start. A rode to a friend's house where he was going to join me for part of the ride and was just really enjoying being on the bike, as I used to ride quite a bit when I was younger (just another one of many athletic activities I used to perform that are hiding in a corner somewhere). As we made our way back from his house though, I realized the majority of the rest of the ride was going to be uphill! Crazy how that works. Muscles in my legs, which previous to the ride I was unaware even existed, began to burn with fire of a thousand suns. Ok dramatic, but geeze I felt like I was in the tour de France! While the adventure proved exhausting and illustrated my immense need to get in shape, as I sat on a swinging chair in the back yard drinking an ice cold glass of beautifully purified water, that old familiar, euphoric, borderline enlightening end-of-workout feeling came creeping right back in.