Everyone needs to spend time on their deck!

Thursday, August 30, 2012 · Mike Davis

I’m sitting here on my deck enjoying a cup of pumpkin spice coffee and relaxing! The temperature is somewhere around 77 degrees and it’s a beautiful August evening with nothing on my agenda tonight but burgers on the grill and a glass of Riesling. How is it possible between a fulltime job, coaching both a half marathon training group and 3 individual clients along with my own running; do I have a full evening to hang out with my wife on the deck? That’s what they make mornings for baby! This morning I was up at 5AM again, shoes on feet on the pavement and 70 great minutes of running. My own personal training plan is working as designed and even leaving me valuable time to enjoy other important parts of my life.

When we had our house built almost 8 years ago the deck was going to be like 12 feet by 12 feet, but both my wife and I knew that we would be spending lots of time on it, so we increased the size (and cost) to something like 20 feet by 25 feet. Eight years later it was the best investment we ever made! We have spent numerous mornings, afternoons and evenings eating meals, drinking coffee, sipping wine and just chilling. It’s safe to say that hanging out on our deck is something that we love to do and often wish we had more time for. With our schedules we often get home just in time to get ready for the next day and head off to bed. Not exactly ideal, but because working with runners and being runners is important we don’t get to always enjoy our favorite things….

I was working with a client on Monday night and she is in the midst of a pretty extreme training plan that consists of running, strength training and some yoga, not leaving a lot of time for life. Right now she’s trying to get to a certain point of healthy running and body balance and it does require 5 to 6 days of commitment. I told her that once we get into month 4 I am going to go over her personal training plan and make some changes that will free up time for her to enjoy the other aspects of life that will give her total balance. Going all out with running, strength training and yoga will benefit her, but eventually I want life balance as well as body balance. In most individual cases I’m not working with someone that needs as much as a commitment as this client, but so far myself, Jaime and even her doctor are all thrilled with the results of Jaime’s personal training plan. I’m pretty confident that Jaime would tell you that she’s happy to put the time and effort in, as she badly wants to run healthy and gain overall balance in with her body. Once I feel Jaime is in a good place I will then look at her personal training plan and make changes that allow for other activities in her life. She may not think she needs them, but she does.

For me, I continue to work at making time for my wife, my deck, taking walks with Roy and other important things in my life, but it will always be a challenge as I enjoy both working with runners and running myself. I guess it’s good that I like getting up early enough to accomplish my own running and fitness goals and it’s also good that my wife is usually out with me either running or working with groups. So tonight I will enjoy my deck and later a glass of Riesling. Cheers!