Watching the clock

Lately, I have noticed that I am having to watch a clock a lot. Strange, considering that I never wear a watch-which BTW drives my mother mad for some reason!

The clock watching started with swimming. My intructor insists that I swim laps within a certain time. I hate it because, I feel enormous pressure-which adds to panicky feelings, which in turn leads me to feeling like I'm hyperventilating, which makes me think I am going to drown. God knows what my heart rate is like?

Next, it was spin bikes. In September, the bikes had computers installed to keep track of your cadence, and ironically a giant clock was positioned right in front of my spot. One can not help feeling tired when your climbing a hill for 5 minutes and see the second hand tick tick tick away in a hypnotically s-l-o-w- way.

Next was the purchase of my Garmin, which tracks just about everything for running, biking and cross country skiiing including time, distance, speed/cadence, heart rate, elevation, you name it. I think I have alluded to this in previous posts, that once you start wearing a time keeper-you become a slave to it.

Finally my RT program requires I be a time keeper. Doing a plank excercise as you stomach muscles feel like they are going to rip away from the rest of your body is real nice example of when the clock moves at an even more exceptionally slow pace.

Now don't get me wong, I believe there is good that comes from watching the clock. It challenges you to become quicker, and motivates you to do better next time round. What amazes me though is the feeling of time. There are instances when the clock feels as if it is going purposely slow, and other times, when it goes purposely fast. It just so happens that the slow clock occurs when you are sapped of energy, and the quick time happens when you have a recovery interval and are allowed to rest.

But there is total freedom when you don't watch the clock. My most enjoyable runs, cycles and swims have been when I live in the moment, and not care what time it is. I guess that is why in part I don't wear a watch. I want to live in the moment- I don't want to feel panic.

As I reflect on time, I also think about my little boy, Isaac who was born 8 years ago today. Time moved by so slowly when I was pregnant. Everyday for 9 1/2 months, I would look up what the baby was doing inside my tummy. How big the baby was getting, what was forming. Would the baby be born healthy with 10 fingers and 10 toes. Would the baby be a boy? a girl? What colour hair, what colour eyes?

Then when I was in labour and delivering him, time moved slowly again-very slowly. I so desperately wanted to meet my baby! 18 hours of labour was an eternity after the 9 1/2 months of waiting with anticipation.

Oh and any mother can tell you that the first few months of a baby's life moves in an unreal time warp of slowness as you are up half the night feeding and changing your baby, only to realize that it could be days before you actually get to have a shower!

Now Isaac is 8. Where did the time go? I think it warped back into some crazy fast paced speed. The wierdest thing is that everynight I look at my precious child's face and don't notice him getting older-I mean I get that he is, but his little face is always my baby.

I guess that is why it is difficult to wear watches or keep track of time-because in this instance I want to hold on to time with my little boy for as long as I can. I don't want it to go fast, I don't want to measure it. Knowing we are mere mortals, means having to say goodbye one day, and I am going to have a fight with time, because I want to savour every moment-yes even if it means having to put up with the hard stuff!