Meg Evans

I’m scheduling this post in advance because of more traveling, to Boston this week—it will be my first time competing in the famous Head of the Charles regatta. It’s an exciting adventure for my mixed quad crew, none of whom have rowed there before. For this week’s Nurturing Thursday, I’m wishing everyone a wonderful early morning, filled with love.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

I haven’t spent much time online recently because the fall rowing season is underway, but that is all right. Traveling to regattas with my teammates is fun, although it keeps me busy, and the training exercises (even if not fun) are great for fitness. I anticipate many good things to come!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

I did an indoor rowing exercise this afternoon, consisting of four intervals of 5 minutes each. It was part of a weekly plan that my husband and I get from our online coaches. Last year, I was assigned a precise result for this same exercise: my time for each 500 meters (known in rowing jargon as the split) was to be 2:12.2. Over 5 minutes, that comes out to 1,135 meters. I was able to do it for each interval, but it felt exhausting.

The coaches weren’t so exact about it this year, and when I sat down on the machine, I had in mind that I would just try to stay somewhere around a 2:12 split and not worry about where it came out. The exercise felt like it had a much easier flow this time, and as it turned out, I still ended up with precisely 2:12.2 for each interval. Not overthinking it worked much better for me!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

Many years ago, I lived in a neighborhood where an outdoor cat had a habit of walking in mud puddles and then jumping up on parked cars, leaving a line of muddy paw prints across the car. Maybe the cat thought of itself as an artist. We usually kept our cars safely in the garage, but the cat got my husband’s car once when it was in the driveway, and our daughter (who was very young) thought it was hilarious when he grumbled, “I hate cats!” For a long time after that, she went around saying, “Daddy HATES cats!” and giggling.

That memory came to mind not long ago, randomly, when I was looking at a cat picture online. It got me thinking about how quickly life goes by. Even when things seem like major annoyances at the time, we may find that they make us smile later.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

I had meant to post my weekly Thursday entry earlier, but once again, the day got away from me. One of these days I’ll get my life better sorted. Of course, like anything else, it takes patience…

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

When I sat down to compose my Nurturing Thursday entry, I got distracted and spent some time browsing through old stories and posts I wrote many years ago. I had meant to say something about those persistent feelings of always searching for a sense of direction, with a bright, shiny future somewhere just out of sight.

After looking at some of my past blog entries, though, I realized there had been quite a lot going on in my life, whether or not I’d been consciously aware of it. I had been growing my wings—much more than I knew.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”

This week I’ve been having an email conversation with a friend about the common belief that when we are not feeling energetic, it is because we are getting older. Although I have felt somewhat tired and run down this summer, it was clear enough, when I thought about it, that the culprit wasn’t the lurking gremlins of middle age but, instead, had to do with higher expectations and pushing myself to do more than usual.

On Monday morning, I went to the boathouse with my husband, and we rowed 21K as practice for traveling to the Chicago rowing half-marathon this coming weekend. Naturally, I felt more tired than when I was younger and didn’t take fitness as seriously! Keeping up with a demanding workout schedule and traveling to rowing competitions, while working full time (and some amount of overtime) was more than I once thought I could do. I haven’t, in fact, lost energy; instead, as the years went by, I overcame a significant number of limiting beliefs and set the bar much higher.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to encourage self-nurturing and to “give the planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.”