Wednesday, August 03, 2005

The Impossible Dream?

Double entendre for this post I suppose: not only have I fallen far short in my exercise and weight loss quest, but now this article yesterday on MSN doubts whether I (and "my kind" as some people call us--you know who you are if you ever read this, my dear) can have real success in our quest for an integrated future that would not try to force us to choose between Career and Family (or at least ease the burdens).

First things first, though. I confess I promptly forgot that I was, in fact, supposed to be keeping an exercise log. This mental slippage was aided and abetted in part by an injury incurred during my brief trip back to Princeton: apparently walking along a curb with construction on one side and traffic on the other while carrying one's suitcase is actually a recipe for losing one's balance, tripping, and falling into the rubble. True brilliance, no? However, vast experience being the Paragon of grace and beauty inures one to such occurrences and provides one with the composure to take such things in stride, albeit a mildly interrupted stride. Incidentally, kindly passersby will offer napkins and bandaids to a young lady walking down Nassau St. with blood running down her leg. I suppose the bloody leg is a bit of an unusual contrast to the professional dress. (Favorite black work skirt is 2-0 for the summer in escaping near-certain disaster brought on by the ever-graceful wearer.) But I digress. The resulting scraped knee was very minor once cleaned up except for one small but fairly deep gash which I was pretty sure would not close unless more or less immobilized for the weekend. So, no gym :( But it was vastly improved by Monday and I have dutifully exercised since...with the highlight being scraping a full 20 seconds off my 1500m rowing time! Also now posting regular readings of spm's (I assume this is one's stroke rating?) of high 30s up to 40. Minimum goal for this evening is to keep those 20 seconds off...wish me luck.

Commentary about the women & work article coming later...I have work to do and a lunch appointment. Recess is beautiful...

3 comments:

The Tiger said...

Interesting.

High 30s to 40 strokes per minute?! Whoa, that's fast. Have to ask what resistance level you're going at...

Best of luck w/ the exercising. I had a lapse (a night out w/ much beer) and set myself back a few days' worth of weight loss. Staying disciplined is tough!

La Cot said...

Tsk, tsk :) I'm sure that is all right in the long run, though--you've been doing very well indeed!

I've been going at resistance level 6 for now, although I think it should be kicked up another notch tonight, since the upper body bit is starting to feel pretty easy. The discipline is tough...Savraj, where are you? We need you here on the East Coast to play enforcer :)

Good luck with the Tatar paper...

The Tiger said...

Actually, he's just bought a car. A 2002 Nissan Maxima.

Sometimes I wonder whether I'd have done better as an engineer than as a humanities type...