So, I'm in an Irish band and we just came off our marathon "March Madness" week, where we had 8 gigs in the course of 5 days. If you're doing your math correctly, that's more than one gig a day, and rarely a gig in the same town. While on the road, there were few opportunities to get a workout in, and when there was a spare hour or two, all I wanted to do was sleep. I was feeling a little guilty about it, until my husband reminded me that THIS is what I'd been training for: no further workouts were needed until I was back from the tour. Now, I wouldn't normally agree with this kind of logic, but then I considered what I'd been doing while on tour, using my 'music to fitness' calculator:
- Each gig is comprised of 3 sets each, and each set is approximately 50 minutes with a 10 minute break. Now for us, it usually ends up two hour and 15 minute sets with a 20 minute set in the middle except on extra long gigs, you divide the average song length by how many cables are hooked up .... you get the picture. But this is an average: 50 minutes of mild to moderate aerobic activity - static holds, fine motor moves, the occasional 10-15 plyo burst of Irish Step-dancing. This also doesn't take into account the fact that we had to schlep our 50 lb speakers, amps and instruments from truck to pub and back for almost every gig, or the bending stooping, stepping over and under that is done every time we set up or tear down.
- Therefore, each gig has 3 aerobic sessions. Over the course of this last week, I did 8 (gigs) X 3 (sets)= 24 hours of aerobics in 4 days. Divide that another way and that would be like walking, with the occasional hop over a rock or duck under a tree for 6 hours a day. And people wonder why I'm so tired after it all!
Let me digress a moment and share a tidbit of my fitness journey insights with you that led me to this newfound sense of control over my choices: I've always enjoyed fitness. I played softball as a child, ran track in junior high as well as being a jv and varsity cheerleader, and I played jv and varsity volleyball in junior and high school. I loved playing volleyball with my friends in the summer, going for hikes, going swimming. Even as a young mother of two under 2, I would dedicate at least one of the kids' nap-times to a step aerobics video if there was enough room on the toy-cluttered floor. However, fitness always seemed like a secondary priority to other, 'more important' things. Yet I still managed to keep my fitness journey going, even if it was only once or twice a week yoga while the dog and cat played chase under me while I was trying to perfect my cat and dog asanas.
Having become a wife by 19 and a mother by 20, I never really got a chance to understand what self-care meant to me. I went from being a self-absorbed teenager, to a confused but inquiring young college student to a wife and mother. I never really got a chance to explore who I was and what nurtured my soul without the expectation that I make others my top priority. Looking back 20 years later, I can see the lessons that my children taught me, and what being a wife and mother has taught me about what I have to offer people as well as what my limits are, and I have absolutely no regrets about it. But now, at 42 with no kids at home and a fairly self-sufficient husband, I have been able to explore what feeds my soul, and have developed a deeper understanding and appreciation of my body and what it can do.
About a year ago this June I was introduced to a health supplement line that got me started on a body cleanse and changed the way I thought about my body and it's abilities (Yes, I'm an Advocare Adviser but I will not give you my 2 minute story here). I had planned on getting back into a regular fitness regimen, but hadn't thought any more about it than the previous 100 times I slacked a bit too long and had to climb back on the fitness wagon. But (blah blah blah, Advocare story) this time I began exploring strength training. Many people rave about their personal trainers, and I'm no different. I give high accolades to my personal trainer, who very quickly became a true friend, in and out of the gym.
When we first started working out I figured I'd go in and lift some weights a couple times a week, and then continue with my plan of running and biking whenever it was convenient. She kept calling me an athlete, and saying I have an athlete's body and all I could think was, "No, I'm a mother. With a mother's body. Look at these stretch marks! Look at the belly pooch! Look at these saggy thighs!" Her enthusiasm for my workouts and for my progress really helped me to shift my paradigm, and helped me start to look at myself as an amazing, multi-faceted person. And one of those facets is this amazing machine of a body which still has plenty of energy and plenty of vitality left to become an elite athlete. (or anything else I want).
I'm grateful that I spent the weeks leading up to this ' March Marathon of Madness (tm)' doing intense workouts, including (and I did not think of this until I started writing this article, which means it was totally intuitive - way cool): Double cardio. Yes, the two weeks before our first road trip down to Seattle, I was getting up at 6:30 am to run a miile and a half to two miles and then go to the gym for my usual strength workout, followed by another 15-30 minutes of gueling stair climbers or sweat-it-out elliptical hiker.
I also was very aware of what I ate and did my best to stick to my usual plan of high protein, low processed whole foods (aka: 'clean eating'). I pre-planned my on-the-road meals as best I could and brought a lot of pre-made food from home to be sure I had healthy options. That really set the stage for the many moments of on-the-road temptations of junk food. Even with those usual temptations, I still managed to make good choices almost every time (there was that incident where we chose to go for Mexican...).
This all sounds well and good, but I want to impress upon you (and myself) that this is the first time I've really felt in control of those choices. This is a sad fact, because the reality is that we have always had the power to choose, but it's taken me until now to really 'get it'.
I'm still not sure what kind of athlete I am or if I want to challenge myself in the arena of fitness competition like my trainer, but for now, it's been great knowing that the skills and discipline that I've gained from working out and pushing myself to do just one more set, just one more rep and challenge myself to lift something heavier than I've ever lifted - That kind of challenge has led me to a new sense of discipline that is, when I went on the road for St. Patrick's Day, the first time I really felt like, "Hey I can do this. I can make healthy choices. It doesn't matter that I get free beer, and free curly fries. No matter what." What I gained was a sense of deep down knowledge that I'm making healthy choices for my body and for my mind, that support me in my lifelong journey.
Now that the dust has settle from St. Patrick's Day, and the band doesn't have anything on the docket until June, I'm back at the gym and looking at new ways to challenge myself.
