A bit of failure -- 5k a Day -- Days 17 and 18

I'm almost glad I didn't complete this challenge 100% perfectly, because it gives me a chance to address that.

Day 17 (take 1)

On Sunday, we rolled out of the tent and into the freshly-rain-washed campground, headed up to the central office, and signed up for tubing.  We had just enough time to read a chapter in our books (it felt so good to read for pleasure after boards.  I read some real brain candy, The Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard, and it was so nice to not read something for school), and then packed up the cooler and headed to the river.  It was about a 4-5 hour tubing trip down the Rifle River.   The trip started out cloudy and about 73°, so not the most ideal tubing weather, but it ended up warming up nicely.

The trip was incredible.  We were so relaxed and lazy, I even dozed off once.  Paul amused himself by using sticks to steer us and get us out of tangles.  It was cool enough that it wasn't until the sun really came out from behind the clouds (after about 3 hours) that we thought about applying the sunscreen we had brough with us, which we did with great purpose.

And by then it was too late.  Guys, cloudy days can still burn ya!  My shoulders and face were okay because they're already mildly tanned, by my poor pasty white legs were burned from below my knees up to the tops of my thighs.  That's an uncomfortable feeling.  Paul fared even worse -- he looks like a lobster on the front of him.

It was stupid of us -- we both believe in sun safety and protecting your skin.  We're a little embarrassed we failed to take care of ourselves!

Anyhow, we hobbled back to camp after our trip, and took turns pulling the heat out of our burns with towels soaked in the spring water the camp pipes up, which was ice cold.  Repeat, repeat, repeat, do it more.  Paul's feet were so burned he couldn't even put shoes on.

There was no 5k gonna be happening that evening.  Neither of us felt like we could physically do it with our burns.  No workout, either.

Day 18 (take 2)

We crawled (slowly) out of our tent, testing the tensile strength of our burned skin. 

We (slowly) packed up camp and loaded the car.

We headed west to Houghton Lake, MI, where some friends of ours have a cabin, and we had committed to hanging out with them the last day of our vacation.  This was awesome cause:

a) they are awesome people

b) they have a boat

c) they have tubes for their boat

This was not awesome because:

a) we were both still incredibly burned

Poor Paul.  Walking was painful for him.  But we slathered up with aloe, lidocaine, and sunscreen, and decided we could handle sitting on the boat.  The water felt amazing on our burns, and we even got in a tiny bit of tubing, but the plastic tube was too brutal for our skin.  Also, I forgot that when wearing pigtails, one should apply sunscreen to one's hair part.  Or one's scalp will be painful to use a comb on.

By the time we got home last night, it was 9.  I unpacked the car while Paul reapplied lidocaine to his legs, and we passed out early.  Pain and a busy day = no 5k, no workout.

Not quite as planned

So there it is guys.  Two days where I didn't get my 5k or workout in.  I'll be doing a 5k tonight hopefully, and it'll be Day 17, version 2.0.  I did get over 10000 steps each day I didn't do the 5k, but it doesn't fall into the spirit of this challenge.

So what can I learn from this?

First of all -- if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  Yup, cliché but true.  I didn't plan for hiking/running paths when we booked our campsite (which was done last-minute).  By not making the 5k a priority in our planning, it because incredibly hard to do.

It's about intention -- from having to substitute a workout bike for 2 days to meandering around camp for the 5k, I still did the "active" portion of this challenge those days by intentionally completing a 5k.  Rigorous adherence to rules is less important than intention, especially in an active challenge.

Falling off the horse is one thing -- watching it run away from you is another.

We're all going to make mistakes.  We're all going to fail to meet goals.  What is just as important is what happens next. Do we say "oh, I failed to do part N, so forget about parts O-Z"?  Nope.  Getting back on the horse is just as important a habit to build as these 30 day challenges.  Not letting that small failure turn into a bigger one is good practice at preventing negative thinking and self-sabotage.

Ever been on a diet and gone over your calorie limit for the day?  What are your choices?

Choice A) Figure out how to "earn" those calories back in your bank with a workout deposit.

Choice B) Say "whoops", and stop right there, being gentile with yourself.

Choice C) Say "fuck it", and go get that Chipotle burrito with everything on it, followed by Coldstone Creamery ice cream for dessert, and snack on chips during your Netflix binge, because it's already screwed up.

I'd say choices A and B are both perfectly fine!  Choice C is what we have to train ourselves to avoid.  It's self-sabotage at its best.  And it doesn't mean you don't hold yourself to stringent standards, or that you're "accepting failure".  You're accepting your human-ness.  Which is probably a good thing to come to terms with, since it probably won't be changing any time soon.

So today I practice chasing down that horse and getting back on, even when I missed two days of this challenge.  

Bonus pictures:

You can already see the red starting on my chest.

Our little cooler is seen floating in the background

Punishment vs. Discipline

How many times do we do something and think we should punish ourselves for it?

"I can't believe I had all that pizza.  I'm not gonna let myself have junk food for a week."

"Ugh, I was lazy and slept in SO late.  Extra mile on my run tonight."

We do it all the time to ourselves, and of course we do -- it's how we were raised, or how society has trained us.  Gee, you're a bad fatty for eating that quarter pounder with cheese (Or a "royale with cheese" if you're a Pulp Fiction fan), so you'd better punish yourself for it by jogging off those calories.  

And yet, most parenting resources talk about "punishment" as a form of discipline -- letting there be natural bad consequences to actions, and reinforcing good behavior while discouraging bad behavior.

This Focus on the Family article has a great table on the difference between discipline and punishment.  

And at the end of the day, it is about motivation and implementation.  (There are countless resources that all espouse the same ideas -- just google "don't discipline while angry" and "punishment vs. discipline".  Far better writers share these ideas much more eloquently than I can.)

Punishment for the sake of punishment results in guilt, feelings of self-loathing, embarrassment, etc.  It's a subconscious "I don't deserve good things" voice in our head.  Discipline, on the other hand, is about the future -- making it the best it can be, learning new and great habits because you deserve the benefits that come with it.

And there should be consequences for our actions.  And there should be things we aspire to do.  But appropriateness is important.  An over-simplified example that doesn't quite fit in the real world but gets the point across:

Joe is a little boy suffering from a vitamin deficiency that can best be remedied by eating spinach.  Poor little Joe absolutely hates spinach, and he refuses to eat it.  In fact, he throws a temper tantrum when he has to.  Mom could a) require that he eat the suggested about of spinach, and if he continues to misbehave, deal with that separately, or b) require that Joe eat 4 times the amount of required spinach despite his misery, out of punishment for getting into the situation to begin with, and out of spite for frustration. 

Okay, so that's obviously ridiculous.  But how many times does a binge eater fail to follow a food plan 100% and then punish himself by eating everything in sight?  Punishment instead of grace.

How often have you heard that girl who needs to run 6 miles tonight because she was "so bad" and ate horribly this morning?  Exercise becoming a punishment instead of a disciplined habit.

Have you heard a story about a patient being diagnosed with Type II Diabetes and spiraling into a life of denial and embarrassment?  Responses disproportionate and unhelpful to the problem.

Punishment vs. Discipline vs. Abuse

Let's take it a step further.  This Huff Post article talks about how when parents discipline while angry, the punishment can cross the border into abuse, both legally and morally.  And how often do we do that to ourselves?  How often do we get angry at ourselves about our behaviors, and fall into a cycle of self-abuse: negative self-talk, miserable workouts, horrible moods because we hate ourselves?  

Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Letting it Affect our Goals

I think this is where the tire hits the road for me.  Why am I picking the challenges I'm doing or the ones I'm planning on in the future?  Is it to punish myself and "fix" something "wrong" with me?  Or is it to replace habits with better ones?

Am I deciding on these things out of a punishment for who or what I am, or to discipline myself into a better future?

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If we wouldn't talk to someone we love like that . . . if we wouldn't treat our best friends like that . . . if we wouldn't discipline our children like that . . .

. . . then maybe we should be constantly evaluating our motivation for how we treat ourselves.

This has been more of a stream of consciousness than any sort of organized blog post, so I may edit and clarify as I reread this in the future.  Hopefully my point came across despite the more rambling nature today.

Active vs. Passive

In these two 30 day challenges I've worked on (Whole30 completed(!) and 5k a Day in progress), my goal was to continue to exercise my "willpower muscle", but I'm finding that I'm actually exercising two very different willpower muscles.

The Passive Challenge

The Whole30 involved a lot of active work -- shop for certain things, do menu research, do a lot of meal prep -- but in actuality was a very passive type of challenge:  you didn't have to add something to your life, you had to not do something for 30 days:
      Don't eat grains.
      Don't eat sweeteners or added sugar.
      Don't eat legumes.
      Don't eat emotionally.
      etc.

At first it was hard to break those habits, but eventually saying "no" to myself became a lot easier.  It became second nature.  Sure, it was annoying and sometimes just damned inconvenient, but the "no" was what got easier.

The Active Challenge

In my attempt to continue that 30 day challenge result, I started this 5k a Day/Core Workout challenge.  And guys, it's totally different.  Instead of "don't do", I'm adding "do."

      Do walk/run 5k every day.

      Do squats every day.

      Do planks every day.

      etc.

I'm using a totally different willpower muscle this month.  It's the "active voice", if you're into literature at all.  It's saying "Yes" to things.  Here I am trying to continue the same thing as 30 Day Challenge 1, but I'm not even working the same muscle!

How Passive and Active Play Off Each Other

My best friend, D, practices Buddhism.  We happened to have a conversation today about her future ordination into the first level of Buddhist leadership, and she mentioned the "don't take a life" rule.  I asked if that meant she needed to be vegetarian, and her reply was basically no, with a great explanation, and it ended with:

The vow is "I undertake the training of life-affirming action" . . . . in Zen the vows are flipped from "don't do this" to "do this". 

She also suffers from fibromyalgia, and she was able to make another connection between her practice of Buddhism and her day-to-day life as a sufferer of chronic pain:

. . . with fibro, you have to think in terms of what you can do, vs the opposite.

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In the human body muscles often occur in pairs: to flex your arm, you contract your biceps and relax your triceps; to extend your arm, vice versa.  When body-builders work muscle groups, they do them in pairs, because they know balance is key.  Strong biceps with weak triceps can lead to damage, injury or pain.  At the very least, it leads to dysfunction.

So as with all things in life, here is another area which seems blatantly obvious once I've thought of it, but was like a lightbulb moment in the difference between what I'm training myself to do each month.

So, Future Challenges?

I guess one of the things I'll have to decide is if I should alternate the active vs. passive willpower challenges, make sure there's a component of each every challenge, or not take it into account at all.

Not sure what the best answer is, and as I'm only a week into this more Active Willpower challenge, I'll keep paying attention to what I learn and how I grow throughout the rest of the 30 days.