Strength and Stretching

I'm sure that a famous person or two once said you'll never learn anything if you don't push yourself outside what you already know. I'm sure the famous people put it much more eloquently than that, but you get the idea.

Its a philosophy that I try to apply to my life every day. Some days its easier to live the philosophy than others. When opportunity knocks, you have the choice to answer...but its a no brainer. Of course you say yes. Even if whatever it is might scare you a bit, you say yes....if for no other reason than because you can.

But its easy to get into a rut. And when opportunity stops knocking you have to really make that effort to seek out the unfamiliar. To search for new ways to push yourself rather than just react to what's thrown at you.

When I signed up for my first triathlon, the fact that I was doing one at all was well outside my boundary of what was known. But now that I've got a couple races under my belt, its not enough to just do them. Now its time to look a little harder for that next boundary to stretch.

When I wake up tomorrow and can't lift my arms....I will definitely know that I am stretching my boundaries. I have never worked arms like I did tonight....a circuit that seemed to go on for eternity. My legs get tired, but overall are pretty strong. My arms.....wimpy miserable little gumby appendages. I'm wondering how I have the ability to do my hair everyday, really. Because the weight I was using probably wasn't much heavier than my blow dryer.

Before I left I heard the trainer say, "if the only strength training you do is this class once a week, it will just keep feeling horrible." Motivation enough. Hopefully soon what I'm doing now will be the routine, and I'll be able to start searching out the next boundary to stretch. But for now, I'll just try to squeeze in strength stuff one other day during the week and hope my blow dryer starts to feel lighter.