Self Obsession, Self Creation, etc etc

Getting back into shape has come with constant reminders of how much my physical fitness has become tied to my sense of self, and my confidence. I aspire to be a fairly zen, smooth guy, you know? Just one of those guys that gets it done. But I'm not really there yet, or else I would be a lot less bothered by the now and just trust in the process of getting back into shape, trust that repeated action and discipline will provide the desired results and in the meantime, just be cool.

But I don't trust the process, because without ultimate I am kind of lost, fitness wise. It is really hard for me to train seriously when I can't play ultimate regularly. But I have, finally, begun the process of shedding the off season rust and getting back in the swing of things, and so it was that I found myself at the gym today wondering exactly what I was doing. 

I'm not good in the gym by myself. I revert a little bit to the scrawny high school freshmen afraid of all the big scary guys, afraid to do the wrong thing. After a warmup run I feel a little better, but I don't like the dull grind of treadmills and stationary bikes. Running without a disc involved or a destination in mind is not palatable.  

Sure does beat not running though. 

And that thought process started a chain reaction of small scale epiphanies. There was a time where I just loved ultimate so much that it was an all consuming obsession. It was more or less all I thought about, all I wanted to do, all I did. That changed, gradually, in college. Ultimate became foremost a responsibility, and my passion was dampened by consistently failing to reach my personal goals, let alone the expectations of others.  I managed to take the game both too seriously and not seriously enough, and that kind of ruined it for a while. 

Now though, I'm trying to be an adult, to get my career off the ground while slogging through the minutiae of low paying jobs, trying to move out of my parents' house, etc etc. And I'm finding that I need ultimate in my life, the kind of joyful physical celebration sort of ultimate that makes real life go away for a while. And I need the energy that being in really good shape provides, so that I can get home from a ten hour workday and still have the fire to draw pictures and preform logistical tasks. 

I can't try and Ken Dobyns my ultimate career anymore. I can't make it my number one priority. My career is more important. But I want to play, as much as I can. And I want to have fun every time I step on the field. If I can change my mentality and attitudes about the game, I suspect I will become a better player and have a much healthier field demeanor. I don't like who I am in ultimate, but I will. Ultimate needs to be my escape, never something to escape from. Its fun.  

So in the absence of a clear-cut ultimate goal (next season being far away and fraught with uncertainty) I have come up with a few general purpose, somewhat arbitrary fitness goals, some targets to shoot at. Why not. I need to be fit. If nothing else, nocturnal is coming up. If nothing else, not being fit sucks so bad. 

I want to be able to: 

Do 100 pushups. 

Do sets of 12 pullups. 

Pull 100 yards. 

Forehand huck 80 yards. 

Weigh under two hundred 

Run a five minute mile, why not, I hate distance running for its own sake but it would be cool to run a five minute mile

Win Nocturnal 

Train six days a week (running, throwing, and upper or lower body)

It takes a lot of writing and thinking to get myself on the right path. I probably would not have made it as a caveman, who ever heard of a neurotic anxiety ridden caveman? Nobody, because they did not have the internet to tell us about it. But nobody quite at ease ever went down into a cave to scrawl on the walls in blood and dirt. 

I like 2013 so far. Keep it rolling.