Built-In Distractions & Excuses

Well, today was a planned swim day, but with the start of fall semester, a new domain site that I just signed up for, and about a gagillion other things I found to distract myself with, instead of swimming at the pool, I am at home. The plan is to make today a "Run" day instead of a swim day.
I must get organized. The plan is to follow the "Couch to 5K Program" to train for the running portion. The first few weeks are more walking and jogging for short spurts. This I know I will be able to survive. It's when we get down to full on running, I'll be praying that I don't die.
At the moment, I am swimming 1400 Yards which consists of:

4 x 150: Free (50) Breast (50) Back (50)

Followed by 100 Back
100 Breast
100 Free

4 Suicides : Sprint 50 free
Slow 50 Breast

Cool Down: 50 Back/ 50 Breast

This changes rotation with stroke focused/kick focused plans.

But, I'm sure most people don't really much care exactly what I'm doing in the pool.

I can't say that after last Monday's "Fat Bitch showdown" with an Ironman, that I'm not exactly enthused with the thought of returning to the pool today, so I guess finding an "excuse" to skip a pool day came easier than it normally would.

The Ironmen are still in training for I believe it's the Madison Ironman event. So they have monopolized the five very small lap lanes at my gym. When I used to have a membership at the Y I was all for sharing lanes (ok that's not 100% true- I would begrudingly share a lane, if I had to... but most of the time I am a one person per lap lane kind of person)

However, at my current gym, the lap lanes are about half the width of a normal lap lane, my armspan during breastroke and butterfly strokes touch the lane dividers on either side. So, trying to share said unbelieveably, and restringly skinny lanes with another person is next to impossible. Try and squeeze a tubby triathlete, plus a bulky muscle-man in a lane, and it's laughably uncomfortable. So, typically, I wait until a lane opens up, which negates the necessity to share.

So, last Monday, aforementioned meat-head muscle man makes a beeline for the very lap lane that I am about to jump into after a thirty minute wait. I decide "screw him, I've been waiting thrity minites, Mr. Self-Entitled can not just breeze out of the locker room and into a lane without having to wait like the rest of us. I proceeded to jump in my lane, ignoring the "Hey....HEY!" from the opposite end if the lane. Mr Muscleman, insisting on getting my attention yells from the other end " THIS IS MY LANE". To which I replied, "Sorry, I've been waiting thirty minutes." He then tells me to share, to which I reply, you can share, you just got here. I pull down my goggles, kick off the wall to which I see him slap the water and call me a "fat bitch" before ducking under the lane and moving into the next one.

Everyone who I have told about my encounter said I should have reported him, but the satisfaction of the jerk getting evicted, was nothing compared to being able to keep my private lap lane.


So, instead Monday will be a run day, and Tuesday, when apparently no one feels like swimming and the pool is next to empty, will be my swim day...until my other class starts next month. Then, I will have to rework everything again.

Do I intentionally over-fill my calendar just so I have a built in excuse when things don't work out, and I end up having to quit? Definitely something to mull over, because it's almost like, in a month from now if I stop going to the gym, I can always say "oh well, school just got to be too much" and that is how I will justify it in my head instead of having to admit failure or defeat.

That, will not happen this time. Time constrained or not- I will find a way to make it all work.