March 2024 reflections
It’s 1 April as I begin to write this. No joke, but it sure feels like it. March just kinda came and went.
That means it’s been a month since I posted my first “month notes”. Which means it is time for another round. Before diving into the specifics, some general thoughts.
On 13 March, I wrote that I wasn’t feeling well. That marked the beginning of a couple weeks of illness. It began as a common cold. I probably tried to do a bit too much through it, and ended up with both sinusitis and bronchitis. It had been more than three months since I last was sick — which is somewhat remarkable given my history the last few years and the season. Which is to say, I had forgotten how much it sucks.
It sucks a lot. And, as my wife will tell you, if you look up “manflu” in a dictionary, you’re going to find a picture of me being ill and feeling sorry for myself. I don’t handle not feeling good very well. But I got through it this time, too. That’s something. But, all in all, my month of March was characterised by this interruption from my normal routines.
Writing
As I got sick, I abandoned my 5AM morning writing routine. I wanted to get as much sleep as I could, to hopefully speed up recovery. I still did everything I could to hang on to my daily writing habit. And I succeeded. Even if it was only by doing the bare minimum for a couple of weeks, I’m happy that I managed to keep the streak alive. As of writing, it has been ~64~ 65 straight days of focused writing.
Falling out of the habit really distracted me. Most days I wrote in the evenings, after putting the kids to bed. I lost all flow. Creativity and productivity took a nosedive. And, by the time I was starting to feel decent again, Easter rolled around. Which meant I delayed the effort of getting back into the early morning routine.
This experience really highlighted the value of my routine. I think there are a couple of reasons it works well for me. I’ve mentioned before that I’m just more primed for creative endeavours in the early hours. There’s also less stuff that can potentially interrupt and prevent me from writing as planned. It makes for a certain amount of stability. With stability comes a rhythm that some days looks suspiciously similar to flow.
As soon as I lose momentum and get out of the rhythm, I start to struggle. Ideas don’t appear as readily. When I sit down to write, words are harder to come by. Some days, it was all I could do to just stare at the screen for 20 minutes. The words just wouldn’t come.
I am thankful that I’ve learned to understand that this ebb and flow is entirely natural in all pursuits. And that in the midst of the lows, showing up is all that matters. Trying, i.e. sitting there and simply looking for the words matters. Experience has taught me that if I do, the tide will inevitably turn.
All told, I wrote around 11,000 words last month. Less than I would have liked. It has me wondering if I should start aiming for a word count every day. But I will not be changing my approach just yet. Let’s just see what the next couple of months look like before doing anything drastic. After all, I did publish 10 blog posts here at Lars-Christian.com. That’s something.
For April, my only goal is to cement my usual daily rhythm and write early in the mornings.
Reading
I did not read as much as I’d like in March. Far from it. When I got sick, I started watching a TV show. Top Boy, which I like a lot. My wife and I also watched True Detective, season 4. Another good watch, even if it didn’t quite reach the heights of season 3, not to mention the pinnacle of on screen entertainment that is the first season. (The less said about season 2, the better.)
What I find is that the more time I spend watching something for entertainment, the more of an effort it feels like to sit down and read a book for entertainment. That, in turn, makes it even more difficult to read for learning. It’s why I’ve more or less stopped watching both movies and shows the last couple of years. I just find reading to be a more rewarding mode of entertainment.
Add to that the fact that I’m not in the middle of any great book or series, and I basically ended up not reading for half the month. Not good. I wanted to try my hand at Asimov’s universe. After some research, I discovered that the Robot series consists of a great number of short stories that set the scene for the four (or is it five?) full novels. So I set out to read those.
Only I don’t enjoy reading short stories all that much. They can work for me if they are set in worlds I already know. But, when bundled in a book, the lack of a cohesive narrative and a known set of characters throws me off. I know this. So I should have realised setting out on a 600+ page tome consisting of more than thirty short stories was not the best idea to rediscover my reading mojo. I didn’t. Live and learn.
I’ve put aside The Complete Robot, for now. And instead picked up the first R. Daneel Olivaw book, The Caves of Steel. Already I’m feeling more enthusiastic about sitting down to read.
Safe to say, I failed in my goal for March, which was to get back to reading again. I will use April to try again.
Health
No aspect of my life suffers more when I get ill than exercise. When I was committed to running and hitting new personal bests, a layoff like this was torture. It was equivalent to having months of hard work wiped out. And coming back and trying to rediscover my groove was, by far, the hardest part of training.
Avoiding that anxiety this time was great. Not exercising for nearly two weeks — 11 days to be precise — still sucked. Getting back into the groove still sucked. The runs I’ve done since getting better all felt awkward and unenjoyable. Nothing’s changed in that regard, in other words.
My total exercise time for March was 14.5 hours. That comprised 10 runs, 8 strength training sessions and 3 elliptical workouts. Which is fine, given the circumstances.
As for my goal of increasing my weight, no progress. When I’m sick and not exercising, I stop tracking my calories. It means reverting to old defaults. I try to keep what I’ve learned the past few months in mind. That means getting a bit of extra proteins and carbs, and cut down on the fatty snacks.
April will be all about getting back on the train and finding the groove again as it relates to health and fitness. I just feel better all around when I’m in the flow in this regard, and I want to get back to that as soon as possible.
Family
I used to think being sick sucked. Then I got to experience being sick while caring for small children. It’s honestly one of the hardest things I can imagine. Luckily my wife was healthy this time around. Plus, the kids are growing and they can do more and more things on their own. The five year old is basically self sufficient at this point. So it wasn’t as bad this time around as it has been. (Thinking back to the summer of 2021 when my wife and I both struggled with covid for weeks, in the middle of summer holidays. Fun times!)
We also closed out the month with a great Easter week. The weather wasn’t all that, but I think everyone had a blast regardless. We visited the Natural History Museum, went swimming, built legos, spent the one day with great weather around the fireplace in the local woods, ate a lot of good food and too much candy, et cetera, et cetera.
And the five year old and I spent many hours playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. What a blast! It’s mostly been me on the controls, but he was really into it and came up with many solutions and great ideas for solving the puzzles in the various temples and shrines. It felt like a milestone when we started playing the Mario platformers together, and another when we went through all the Pokemon games on the Switch. But Tears of the Kingdom is a game I’ve been itching to play through myself. I just haven’t found the time. To be able to do it together with my favourite guy is really something.
All in all, I had a pretty great month as a dad. Which, come to think of it, is my most important job by far. The goal for April, then, is more of the same in this category.
Beyond that, I just hope to stay healthy and get back into the groove of things. I’ve got a weekend with my friends coming up in a couple weeks time, and would like to be in good shape for that.