November 23, 2001

post-thankfulness

Funny thing; yesterday, the amount of food on my plate looked perfectly
reasonable (2-3 slices of turkey breast; one potato, sliced not quite all the way
through and fanned out, with butter, herbs, and cheeses dribbled over it; some
steamed asparagus with lemon butter; a slice of bread; a pickle; and a small bowl
of my tomato and bread salad) but after I got done eating all that, plus (hours
later) a serving of caramel pot-au-creme (which turned out to be both easy and
tasty) I felt the beginnings of a food fight going on in my gut, plus the
intensifying of a headache I'd had all day. I don't know why this should be,
except, of course, that my stomach isn't used to Thanksgiving dinners, as a
general thing. Also, an amount of food that appears to be perfectly fine for an
average-sized person can be way too much for me. Rudder, as usual, ate three times
as much with no ill effects. Oh, well, at least I've participated in a national
ritual: the post-Thanksgiving dinner Alka-Seltzer Moment.

Also, due
to my sudden realization that the Concept II 200000 meter holiday challenge began
on Thanksgiving, not the day after, I pulled two 2000 meter pieces, which didn't
help either my head or my stomach. Yes, it's here; Hell Month has begun. Two
hundred thousand meters between Thanksgiving and Christmas translates to 6060
meters/day, average. Obviously, today I Had some catching up to do, since I only
did a total of 4K yesterday, so I pulled 8500 meters and am now back on track and
even a tiny bit ahead. If we take a possible two-week driving trip to Yellowstone
and Rudder's home town in Oregon over Christmas, I may not make the whole
distance. Still, the prize is nominal. The real point of it is just to erg more,
so if I try but don't finish, I won't mourn. For purposes of comparison, I have
actually done just over 200000 meters since the end of January, when I began
logging it. However, that's not including all the distance rowed in a real boat.
(Rudder's suggestion is to take the erg with us on our trip. I've mentally filed
that under How to Ruin a Perfectly Good Vacation.)

So even though at
any second I can pull up a long list of things for which I am thankful, with
Rudder at the head of the list, I don't feel thankful at the moment. To counter
that tendency, between now and Christmas, at the end of every daily entry I'll
note the meters left out of that 200000, plus one thing for which I am
thankful.

Today I am thankful for: wearing cotton and spandex
workout clothes instead of a burqa.

CII Holiday Challenge:187249
meters to go

Posted by dichroic at November 23, 2001 04:59 PM
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