Whirlwind.

Having a new employee is exhausting. I have to find things for him to do all the time. Like, eight hours a day, five days a week. It’s really taxing. And I have to teach him to do a lot of really complicated things. Fast. Without overloading him. I’m really kind of spinning and it’s revealing what a chaotic way I organize my own work. Luckily, this is my new employee’s first job ever. And so he doesn’t have much to compare it against. I’ll get my act together soon enough. But it’s difficult.

This weekend I had a long, tough, fairly miserable 10K run. Not sure why it was so bad, but it was. I plodded through with 11 minute miles and wanted to die. Then I went home and slept for 2 hours. It was harder than any of my half marathons, and I felt like garbage all day. Partly, perhaps, I’ve just been running less. I’m only getting in 10-15 miles a week right now, which is fine. I’m still going to the gym and biking. But I’m deliberately resting my feet.

Both of my feet hurt. On the left my Achilles is barking at me, especially in the mornings. On the right, I have a regular dull pain in my instep. I’m sure both will heal with time and rest. For me, rest doesn’t mean shutting everything down. It means easing off, getting in short, easy runs, and keeping up my fitness without pounding my feet so much.

I really like the fitness program my new trainer has me doing. He’s a good trainer, and gets a lot out of me. He’s kind of a stereotypical late-20s/early-30s fitness dude. A little brash, a little testosterone-heavy. He’s thoughtful about fitness and responsive to what I want to get out of it. When I talk about my goals, he always says, “We can get you there.” I like that confidence. He seems to think anything is possible. I even mentioned a half-Ironman as a possible goal, and he said the same thing.

Maybe I can get there. BB is adamant that I take the swimming more seriously than I have. And as much as my stupid male bravado wants to say, “I’m a strong swimmer, I’ll be fine,” she’s been right about literally every single fitness thing we’ve ever talked about. So I need to listen to her. I’m in the process of setting my 2016 fitness goals and I’m thinking of including a sprint or Olympic triathlon in them. But I’ll need to find a pool. And I’ll need a training plan that’s more sophisticated than “I ran and biked and swam a lot.”

I really crushed all my fitness and professional goals this year. And I kept up my most important goal of all: I’m sober heading into the new year again. I want to be steady, ambitious, and effective in 2016. I want to move upward and forward again. I like accomplishing my goals. I like feeling productive. I like having the life I thought was lost to me.