So Unlike Me

Normally on weekday evenings, you’ll find me a) in the gym or b) on my couch, resting and relaxing or occasionally c) at work if something went wrong.  About once or twice a month or so, I go out on a weekday but I usually try to keep it mellow-sauce.

Normally, I go one, MAYBE two days without a workout or I go insane/feel like a slacker/etc.

However, this last week hasn’t been normal at all.

Last week, I had the perfect storm of my glute acting up, then a cold, then my race getting cancelled, so I did NOTHING after Tuesday trying to save up all my strength for a race that didn’t happen.

This week started already behind the curve.  Monday, I had a lot of catch up to do with chores and groceries since I was laid out this weekend sick, so I didn’t even eat dinner until 9:30, let alone work out.  Plus, I was still a little under the weather, so I didn’t push it.

Then, we’ve had our annual game industry convention in town the rest of the week.  This means session and panels and expo floor and networking, oh my.  This means lunches and dinners downtown with old friends, coworkers, and new acquaintances.  This also means lots of open bar parties and many hours out and about until all hours of the night to catch up and socialize with said fine folks.

This also means no time to run and do formal workouts.  I haven’t hit the pavement or the gym since October 4.  That’s 9 days counting today.  That’s a lot for me, if you haven’t noticed by paying attention to my normal schedule.  Four years ago, I would have FLIPPED THE HELL OUT and thought “OMG I haven’t worked out in forever and I’m going to get out of the habit and I’m never going to work out again and get fat and go from runner to couch potato ARGHLARGH!!!”  Today, my thoughts are, “Whew, nice little break before my marathon training officially starts!”  It’s nice to be reasonable sometimes.

While I definitely indulge the healthy living/racing/social adventures part of my life much more in this blog, I do have a pretty sweet video game producer gig.  I don’t talk about it much here because a) most of the people reading this are probably not interested and really are more curious to know much more interesting facts like I am addicted to costco packs of sliced apples now and I currently weight 176 lbs and I got some really cool random tee shirts in the mail and more importantly b) I really like my job, and I’d rather not walk the line of deciding what’s appropriate to post about the industry and my day to day.  However, even though I don’t really believe it, people tell me I’m kind of a big deal, and it’s kind of nice to really revel in that and conferences with your peers are a great time to do it.

Most days, I wear my producer hat for a while, and my athlete hat for a while.  I love the dichotomy of having two vastly different aspects of my personality and tasks each day.  My day job is rife with decision fatigue and sitting on my butt and telling other people what to do.  My superhero self only has to decide to put one foot/pedal/stroke in front of the other and it’s like as far anti-butt-sitting as possible and is all about the doing.

Sometimes, like during a peak training week, it’s all about the training.   Work is work, and I’m in right on time and out the door 8 hours after (although, a lot of times peak training week and crazy crunch weeks collide, and that is ever so fun, running 9 miles after a 12 hour day is not exactly awesome but, whatevs) to either train or get in the maximum amount of rest I can.

Some weeks, like this one, I do n0 formal activity beyond walking some miles and a multi-hour dance party last night, and I’m in producer/network/game industry mode all day.

It’s all about balance.  More balance than this dude has…

I’m looking forward to a little more yang to this week’s yin as the sickness and injury seem to have passed and the convention has come and gone as of today, but for the next few evenings?  My ass + couch = match made in heaven.  I even turned down an invite to a fancy party tonight.  I did however hit the gym today for a nice mellow 35 mins of arc trainer while catching up on twitter and it felt awesome.  Tomorrow, my goal is to run somewhere between 10k and double digits.  As slow as I wanna.  No need to hurt myself but wanna log some mileses.

Cool things that happened this week:

-We won an audience choice award for our game, and were nominated for 2 others.  Fun fact – my name was up in lights (sadly, I didn’t get to see it because I didn’t notice the names until after but I was told).  We got to sit in the VIP section and everything, it was pretty cool.

-My old CEO (of a pretty big company) recognized me, and is a huge closet fan of my game.  Awesome!

-I’ve been recruited for roller derby by a cool chick that works with me.  I’m going to at least go to a practice and check it out.  Probably not going to try to do that + marathon at the same time but it would be fun to see what it’s all about.

-It’s always fun to see people that only knew fat Quix from San Diego and see their jaw drop when they see me.  Nice ego boost.

-I have been recruited to go try out Roller Derby.  I’m going to go to a practice soon.  I don’t think I’ll be joining up during marathon training or anything, but it would be cool to check it out.  I love me some roller skating, and I’m not horrible at it.

-Tore it up on the dance floor with a bunch of coworkers for hours.

-Saw a lot of old friends/peers.  It’s nice to see a lot of the people I worked in the trenches with are now also coming into their own awesome successful careers.

It’s good to start to be back to normal, but different is fun sometimes!  Especially when different = fancy parties and winning awards and good peoples I haven’t seen in a long time! 🙂  Do you ever take some time away just to indulge an  aspect of your personality you normally don’t let consume your life?  Anyone do anything super cool this week and wanna brag?