Integrate Your Endurance Training Into Your Life In A Healthy Way

Hi folks,

Homestead Road Community Pool at 5:39 am. Most lanes are free.

This is a follow-up post to the ‘early morning swim chicken‘ one I posted previously. I am a notorious no-show for early morning swims, but I am working to fix this. Like one of my key biking partners, Rory, I also tend to lose the mental debate at 5:00 am and end up staying in bed. But that is no way to work towards a sub-13 hour Lake Placid Ironman time, so I am biting the bullet and finding ways to be in the pool at 5:30 am at least twice a week. My latest plan worked fairly well, and here it is.

Sunrise Biscuits at 6:44 am, collecting biscuits for Johnny's.

As part of my new entrepreneurial life, I am heavily involved in a grocery store/coffee shop/community center, called Johnny’s Gone Fishing (aka Johnny’s or JGF) and it is now open and going pretty well, considering. Money is actually coming in to offset what we are paying out, stock is growing, and almost everyone, except ‘The Grinch,’ seems really pleased that we are operating. I’m learning a lot about business, meeting some really interesting people and enjoying myself in this endeavor.

The other day I agreed to pick up the biscuits from Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen after my early morning swim, and deliver them to Johnny’s before 7:00 am. In fact, I knew that I had one customer expecting my prompt arrival. I took this opportunity to schedule my early morning swim at 5:30 (alarm went off at 4:45 – mistake 1 and 2: alarm would have been better at 4:30 am and I should have resisted the temptation to punch the 5 min snooze alarm, which caused me to be 9 min late at the pool and that cost me the final set of my workout).

David Glass, Johnny's enthusiast, with his promised early morning biscuit at 7:05 am (I made it just in time!)

I enjoyed my swim, drove to Sunrise for the biscuits and then delivered them to Johnny’s at 6:59 am (not bad!), where I enjoyed coffee, a biscuit, and a quiet post-workout moment. At 7:05 am in comes David, my expected customer, who was delighted that we were open and the biscuits were ready. He purchased one sausage and egg biscuit, and then headed off for who knows where looking very happy. I suspect that if I hadn’t been held to this set of deadlines I would have chickened out of the early morning swim yet again.

As a test of my newfound willpower, I am going to see if I can do it again tomorrow (no biscuits needed as tamales come on Fridays) and finish off that last section of the swim. I think I’ll work with my paddles again and then go for tamales and coffee at Johnny’s. Now that’s a plan that might just get me to Kona one day.

-k @FitOldDog