Middle-age man morning report

When in the U.S. Army five decades ago, I remember how each morning there was a morning ritual leading to what was known as the Morning Report.   A fellow soldier friend of mine had as one of his many duties its daily preparation.  

The Morning Report was a document produced every morning for every basic unit of the Army.  It reported head counts of Army soldiers and changes in status from the previous day.  Once completed, it was reviewed and approved by the unit’s Commanding Officer and then punted up the Army chain of command. Basically, it was a daily measure of Army soldier resources, strength accountability and military readiness. 

Fast forward to my middle-age man present.   

Nowadays, I do a morning report of sorts with my middle-age man body to assess its resource availability and readiness for another day of fitness training.  In 2 Thessalonians 3 we read: “If any man will not work, neither let him eat.”   Pierini Fitness says, “If I don’t earn my calories from activities of daily living and exercise, let me not eat.”

My morning report assesses my body and mind’s readiness for planned daily living activities and fitness training.  Nowadays, it’s giving me much different information than a noon or early afternoon report.   

For example, yesterday, upon awakening and crawling out of bed, one of my first thoughts was how sore and stiff I was, and that perhaps my planned fitness activities for the day might not take place.   

My wrists, hands and ankles were sore, and the rest of my body “radiated” signals that perhaps a day of fitness training rest was a good idea.  My previous day’s workout included a short morning kettlebell workout and then later in the day, 150 burpees performed at a moderate pace. 

This has become a common morning experience for me that’s more pronounced than decades earlier.  I remember when in my late 40’s until my early 50’s hitting the gym at 6:00 am sharp, roaring, and ready to go, each Monday through Friday.  I don’t have the physical ganas to do this nowadays.  Did it, done it and gone! 

What I’m also finding is that as time passes, these morning report feelings begin to dissipate so that by noon or early afternoon, I’m ready to tackle my fitness training for the day.  Yesterday, for example, after my ganas woke up, I went for a great 6-mile early afternoon run.

So, my middle-age man morning report is often not a good measure of my middle-age man body's resource availability and readiness for another day of fitness training.

You may recall from what I’ve previously shared that my fitness training approach is an intuitive one.  I’m never quite sure what I’ll do even though I have some ideas and preferred exercises to select from in my fitness training cafeteria with workout duration and intensity depending on what’s being reported in my morning, noon, and early-afternoon reports. 

Works for me. 

Even though it doesn’t always give me the good report I’d like, I’ll continue each day preparing upon awakening and crawling out of bed, my middle-age man morning report. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

OK boomer

It’s normal for us middle-aged men to have ambivalent feelings from time to time about our gracefully aging journeys.  On one hand, we’re blessed with perspectives and wisdom coming from a life well-lived, having racked up many lessons of life along the way.

On the other hand, at any given moment, more so upon awakening or late at night before calling it another day of life, we may be toiling with aches, atrophy, rust and wrinkles, physically and emotionally,  that shout out as “friendly reminders” that our journeys toward the end of our lives are getting closer to the end.  This assumes, of course, we’re not afflicted with stage 4 denial.  

Which of the two is the better?

Neither, because they come as a package that, most of the time, results in a middle-aged man blur with one not being distinguishable from the other. 

Would we rather turn back the clocks of our lifetimes to our more youthful yesteryears, or to be content and grateful with what we’ve got and how we are at our now moments?

Perhaps this pearl of wisdom from an aging older woman, actress Helen Mirren, says it best:  “With every age comes advantages and disadvantages. And you tend to find you don’t want to go back.  You want to be exactly where you are with everything you’ve experienced.”

What a great and healthy perspective this is, yet we might still ponder it along with a realization of thinking getting old would take longer.  And a realization that someone once shared with me when I asked how he was doing and he replied, “I’m getting old and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Nevertheless, we must gallantly continue marching forward in our gracefully aging journeys, flaunting our baby boomer perspectives and wisdom to the youthful generations, the cast of characters who stand below us in the wisdom department, known by others as Generation X, Millennial and Generation Z.

These youthful characters may not always appreciate our perspectives and wisdom, thinking they’re laden with old-fashioned, unsolicited and not of value attributes in today’s modern and fast-paced “real world” in which they live.

“Thanks, but no thanks”, they may say if they’re trying their best to be semi-courteous.  Or, if they’re curt, maybe we’ll “luck out” and get an “OK boomer.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Of what you don't need

Arrivederci Piedmont Court

Last Friday, I was in Santa Cruz for the weekend preparing for a downsizing of sorts.  It involved clearing out personal belongings from a vacation condo we sold two days ago. 

When in Santa Cruz, I got into a morning ritual of going to Santa Cruz Roasting Company and ordering my favorite cup of coffee, Santa Cruz Dark.  I’d grab a copy of the local free newspaper, Good Times, and read it while enjoying what has got to be one of the most amazing cups of coffee in the whole world.

I eventually found my way to a weekly column written by a local real estate agent.  His column, titled Real Estate of Mind, always contained content of interest to me, and it was written in a style with which I could identify.  Perhaps this is because, like me, he’s undoubtedly a late-stage middle-aged man with a writing style having many similarities to mine; except his is better. 

Anyway, the article I read last Friday was on the subject of downsizing and it began by describing downsizing as a “vague, catch-all term we use to describe the strange place many people find themselves in these days as card-carrying (Social Security) members of a rapidly-aging culture.”  While I’m not yet collecting Social Security benefits, that day will soon arrive and earlier than that, in less than four months, I’ll officially be a Medicare Man.

The article struck so many chords with me as I began spending the last few days living in this pleasant vacation home we owned for three years.  I didn’t know what emotions and feelings I was about to experience preparing to say goodbye to a “good friend.”  A place where I had many relaxing weekend moments getting away from the rat race and having Santa Cruz and the surrounding areas as an amazing landscape venue for many workouts I took in while there.  Top of this list for 2019 was running the Wharf to Wharf 6-miler fun run, something I hadn’t done in twenty years.

Later in the article, another truth was revealed, “downsizing is the paradigm shift that tests all our long-held assumptions about success, comfort and desirability of stuff.” 

How true this is, I reflected, while psychologically preparing to get rid of “stuff” during my final weekend visit.

Perhaps what drove the nail in the coffin for me in reaching the end of the article were a couple pearls of wisdom.  The first was “I’ll never be younger than I am today.”

And, the second was “You can’t ever get enough of what you don’t need.”

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Going and coming

Well, by golly, haven’t I been AWOL!

It’s been almost one month since Pierini Fitness has had new content.  What’s up?

Well, I’ve been on vacation most of the month.  While not far away from my locale or a computer, this vacation mindset spilled over to adding new Pierini Fitness content.  I just didn’t have it in me to step up to the plate and deliver new middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully-aging and trying to live a good and honest life.

Despite being on vacation, my fitness training continued full steam, maybe even a little more as I chase my Fall 2019 fitness goals, goals that I shared in my last update.  I’ve achieved two goals thus far that I share below: 

Complete a single set of 25 bar dips

I accomplished this goal on October 11^th by performing a single set of 25 reps.  Not that long later, I performed a single set of 26 reps on October 25^th.  Here’s a video of the 26-rep effort:

Pull-up hang hold of 1:50

In a total surprise, I did a 2:02 pull-up hang hold on October 19^th.  I don’t have a video of my effort.  I’ll keep hanging periodically and maybe one of these days I’ll capture a video of me hanging for a respectable time.

Meanwhile, training to achieve the other goals remains a work in process.  And, I also do some other stuff to keep my training interesting.  Recently, I decided to test myself and see how many pushups I could perform in a single set.  I don’t regularly do pushups.  The last time I tested, a couple months ago, I did 35 pushups.  On October 20^th, I was able to complete 50 pushups.

 

Just about all my training this year is done at one of several parks I visit, since I no longer have a gym membership.  I’m enjoying my park training and have met several people while there, men and women training just like me.  I even bumped into a person I used to train with in the Olympic lifts about ten years ago.   He no longer trains in the Olympic lifts, like me, and, like me, his training nowadays includes both pull-ups and running.  He’s young enough to be my son.

Last week while carrying my kettlebells to the pull-up bar station, noticing how heavy they felt and wondering how I was going to perform the planned workout, I saw this elderly woman who was walking at a reasonably brisk pace next to me.  “Good morning” I greeted, “Are you going or coming?”  She replied that she was going as in going home.  A short pause later, she added that, however, she was also coming, coming from the place where she had walked to have breakfast, something she does a couple days a week.  So, she clarified, she was both going and coming.

Her updated answer was a Eureka moment for me.  It made me realize that all I do in my life, like her, involves both going and coming.  I never had thought of it this way.  Seems like I always fancy myself as going or coming, one or the other, but not both.

She made me realize, that I’m always doing both.

So, in my gracefully aging journey, I’m going towards the end of my life but coming from the youthful life I’ve previously lived.

And, in my current journey of chasing good fitness, health and wellness, I’m going towards a heightened level of physical fitness and coming from a lesser level from allowing myself to get out of peak conditioning.

I could go on and on and so can you, we’re doing not one or the other, but both, going and coming. 

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum