Brief Update

A Marathon, A Possible Life Change

It was a busy weekend. I ran a marathon on Saturday. Sunday was Mother’s Day. I had missed posting here on Friday.

Today, I came to write a proper entry, but I’m a bit foggy and getting stuck. I was going to continue writing about finding my process (following my start last week), but what I hoped would be a quick summary turned out to be long and meandered too much. I got lost in it.

I’ll come back to that another time. (I’m great at starting things; not so great at coming back for second rounds, especially with Part Two’s of anything).

Today, I am just showing up, typing something and posting it, hoping it will be at least a little useful to my readers.

My biggest thought this morning is how I am considering quitting coffee. I have been addicted to coffee since I was 18 (I am now almost 41). After completing my marathon just shy of my sub 3-hour goal, I am now motivated to see what changes I can make to get there. I did all the training right. I was fitter than ever. But with honest reflection, I have not been caring too much about my diet. I’m wondering what could happen if I changed what I put into my body.

The three main culprits for me are: caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. I would like to eliminate all three, or significantly cut back, but the one that is most dear to me is caffeine. The thought of cutting out coffee is scary!

So rather than jump in head first and try to cut everything out, completely, all at once, I am doing one thing first: taking out my afternoon coffee for two weeks. That is all. Along the way, I will also avoid sugar if I can and definitely keep drinking to a minimum (maybe a glass with friends or family on Fridays).

So that is my big update today. I’m flirting with quitting coffee, because I know that I drink too much, and it’s something I can limit. It took me running a 3:01:28 marathon to even consider it.

Here’s how I think quitting coffee could help me with my marathon time, and also in my life:

• I drink too much coffee, too late in the day. This affects my sleep. Quitting afternoon coffee and limiting myself to just one cup in the morning will mean less than half my usual intake of caffeine, which should hopefully translate to more restful sleeps.
• This should in turn make me more truly awake during the day. Running-wise, this should help my body recover better during training and make me stronger on race day. Work-wise, I should have more mental clarity. I’m hoping that I will even have a better memory and be quicker-thinking.
• I am a very anxious person. Caffeine very likely exacerbates this. Taking out caffeine (or even significantly reducing it) should help me stay calmer and less likely to feel anxious, especially about small stuff. This in turn will probably make me an easier person to live with and a better parent!

This isn’t exactly art related, but life and art are sometimes one and the same thing. Obviously, diet and health, including mental health, all affect our performance in work, so there will be a trickle down effect for sure. However, what is showing through here, which is exactly how I do things in my process, is the need to give structure to the whole effort: here, that means giving myself a doable goal (just cut out my afternoon coffee) and a timeline (just make the change for two weeks). There is a sacrifice but not a total one. And there is an end in sight. However hard it might end up feeling, there is a way out. If I can just keep to the plan for the full two weeks, even if I go back to all coffee all the time, I can say I tried. I will have accomplished a goal, and I can feel good about that. There is no way I can fail (unless I have an afternoon coffee today)!

Smaller, doable goals with clear outcomes and timelines is exactly how I overcome creative problems. I can only do bigger, harder things by tricking myself into doing smaller, easier things. Once I’m going, once I check off a few smaller goals, I’m usually game to keep going; the momentum is there, and I can keep pushing further and further to the end goal.

My hope is that by the end of two weeks off the afternoon coffee, I will feel up for the bigger challenge of taking it out altogether. As for sugar and beer—I’ll have to make a plan for that next.

One step at a time.