Waking Up at the Eighth Hour

This blog hasn't been the inspiration I had hoped for, and eight months went by in my Becoming Sixty Year without much progress.  I did find that inspiration, though.  Two weeks ago.  It came from an unlikely source: the Defense Logistics Agency's Facebook page.  They posted an article on the benefits of morning exercise, and when I read it a spark went off somewhere in my mind that appears to have lit the fire I've been trying to kindle.

So, I've now done good, hard cardio in my home gym on eleven of the last twelve mornings.  I feel great!  I had to grease the elliptical to get the smooth, undistracted ride I need, and it's now beginning to feel like habit again.  I'm waking early, throwing on some shorts, shoes, my Polar Bluetooth chest strap, my Klipsch ear buds and iPod Nano, and I'm working myself into a dripping sweat before doing anything else in the day.

That DLA Facebook post created the spark, but eleven out of the last twelve days has now become the motivator.  I want to go twelve of the last thirteen, and eventually twenty nine of the last thirty.  Fifty nine of the last sixty.  I missed one Friday.  I don't want to miss another single day.  Of course I know I will, I'll not be at my home gym when I spend two weeks in Boise this September.  On those days I'll have to just focus on my Fitbit steps and make sure I get 10,000 or more.

The Polar heart rate monitor and the iPhone app - coupled with the Polar Flow website - is helping with my motivation.  Technology and exercise creating some interesting data!  Here's a look at my monthly data as of today:

I've spent most of my workout time in the yellow range, which is when my heart rate is between 128 and 144.  That's perfect.  It's what I learned in cardiac rehab and it's what I did 5-6 days a week back in 2001 after my heart attack.  I wore a heart monitor back then, but I never got data from it, and I never had data visualization like this.  Here's a graph from this morning's workout, and it's basically what I see real-time on my iPhone as I workout:

I love it.  I'm finally motivated enough to make this a habit again, and although I haven't lost any weight and my waistline has no perceptible change, I feel better.  I'm breathing better.  I can already see the improvement in the stats just over two weeks.  I'm just getting started, so the weight loss and looser belt will come in time - or not.  Maybe this is just me, now, at almost sixty.  I'd be OK with that, as long as I have the wind and the strength and the stamina to do the things I want to do.

I'm happy, and I'm back.

The Sixty I Want to Be

I decided to use this blog to chronicle the year that I become sixty.  I have a clear image of how I want to be at sixty, and I've been thinking about that version of me for a long time.  I hope to use this blog as inspiration and motivation to make some simple behavioral changes.  My aspirations are pretty simple.  I'm not trying to do anything that I haven't done before, and I'm not expecting unreasonable results.  I'm not trying to become young again - I want to get older.  I want to get happier as I get older, and I don't think that should be that hard to do.

Should is an interesting word, of course, and although it seems like it should be easy I should have done it long ago.  If I had continued doing what I've done before I wouldn't need to do what I have to do now.  They were good, constructive behaviors that I actually enjoyed at the time.  Paths and choices necessitated leaving some of the things I loved behind like ballast dropped to clear a hurdle.  Some of it was simply a loss of focus, though.  There are things I could have hung on to as I reached for new goals and challenges - not with the same level of commitment, perhaps, but with some continuity.

So here's what I think I should be able to do this year.  I should be able to get back to a level of fitness that I reached in the year after a mild heart attack woke me up when I was forty six.  I don't want to be forty six again, I'll have more aches and pains than I did then and I know getting fit will be harder than it was then, but I should be able to get - and stay - fit enough to do the activities I want to do in my sixties and beyond.  Simple activities, like walking and hiking and biking without having to wonder what the hell I've done to myself.

I should be able to tap back into that creative place in my mind again, and reintroduce my hand to line and crosshatch, light and shadow.  I should be able to draw again, at least as well as I did when I put the pen down to pick up the circuit board.  I should be able to shoot again, at least as well as I did when I put the camera down.  I've never totally stopped doing either, I just lost the passion I once had.  I refocused that passion on the IT career I chose instead, a more lucrative path that provided better circumstances for my family over the last three decades.

My passion for my career is still strong, in fact the challenges are more interesting and exciting as I approach both the peak and the end - with a new beginning beyond.  Beyond may start when I turn sixty, or maybe when I'm sixty one.   I intend to pick up at the end of my career where I left off when I began it.  I want to go back to that place where I was filled with different, more creative aspiration.  I want to go into that beyond fit enough to engage that aspiration, with the knowledge and confidence I've developed in raising a healthy family and traversing a successful career.

It's my approach to aging.  I want to go back to a place I once was, a place I loved, and pick up where I left off - but, smarter, more confident, and better funded.  The old and young still live inside of me.  The idealism of youth and wisdom of age.  It's all still there, tucked away inside, and as long as I keep the vessel healthy I'll be able to continue to tap the contents.  Hopefully I'll find new ways to put it all together, but this year I make sure it's all intact when I get there.

The Becoming Sixty Year

I'm fifty nine years old. I was fifty eight when I woke yesterday morning, and at some point in the day the counter rolled by one. Thus begins my year of Becoming Sixty. Or, more accurately, my year of Becoming The Sixty I Want To Be.


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Location:Atlantic Dr,Aquia Harbour,United States