And on the 3rd day, he rests..

Mason and I have been having quite the battle of wits here lately 'bout the same time every day..nap time! He says "I'm not tired", I say something really smart like "go to sleep because I say so", and it goes a little something like that for the next couple hours while I try to rest, but get increasingly frustrated by his refusal to sleep. Why do I get worked up over this? Well, plenty of silly reasons, I'm sure, but also because.. I DO know best and I know my guy needs his sleep, or he turns in to a crazy person. It may not be right away, which is what tricks most people, but he will, for sure, have a melt down if he doesn't get his sleep. So knowing this, I wage the battle.. And lost the last two days. But today, though he started with the same arguments, in just a short while, there was silence.. And 3 hours later, he emerges a well-rested, super sweet little guy. Totally worth the continued battles and I stand by my 'never give in' stance on the nap issue. I know lots of folks think that, at four, he's ready to give up naps..but I say...nope, not yet! Why is this important? It's not, really.. But I DID need my rest today. I was able to get some decent working out in this lovely, warm July holiday morning..and it was lovely! I took a chance at seeing how my cycling was going.. I was a little nervous because I hadn't been out to ride in a couple weeks.. And my last time out was a slow, crampy, breathless mess.. But we went out early, and I reasoned myself out of an early, quick jog before the ride, which would have been unnecessary and possibly ruined my ride.. Why I even considered adding an early run to my workout plans? Don't have an answer for that one. Old habits die hard, I suppose. But anyway.. I wasn't able to eat much, due to my little guys aversion to pretty much ALL food, so I mixed up some accelerade and hoped for the best. We were just doing our usual 20 mi loop, but I felt good! Just a couple times where I cramped a bit or felt a little out of breath, but I recovered quickly and managed to keep up just fine! Though this was an easy, recovery ride for my fellow riders.. That's how I gotta get 'em these days! The more worn out my buddies are, the better shot I have at riding with them. After the ride, I guess I was feeling cocky because we went out to do a little swimming. I was starting to feel a little 'low sugar-y', but mixed up some more accel/Gatorade and ate a couple bites of my son's un-eaten oatmeal and I was fine. I kept it easy in the water, as is necessary for these days. I've started just going by time vs counting laps or distance, which can lead to a)being bummed about how few laps you can swim these days, and b)swimming after some arbitrary distance goal that means nothing right now.. So now I just divide out the time I have to swim and say, for example..swim regular 10 min, pull for the next 10 min, kick for 10, etc.. That seems to be working pretty well for me. I still feel the best when I pull with paddles.. I can really move with those thigs on! Now I just need to figure out how to swim like that without..you know.. Cheating! It was a rather intense morning in the pool.. Full of walkers? And slow, older swimmers with a tendency to swing their arms way wide and weave a bit in the lane.. Makes for some interesting lap swimming! We have this gigantic 8 lane 50m pool to use, but somehow, us lap swimmers are in the minority and get to figure out how to navigate through all those walkers and water aerobics folk out there. Of coarse, we don't have those issues at 5am! Maybe I need to get to sleep earlier and see if the cold shower idea helps keep me feeling good enough to get back out there early enough to miss all that foolishness. We'll see.. But for now, I feel good about being able to at least ride 20 mi with the TNT group when I coach this Saturday.. So I have that going for me! Those lucky little triathletes..