Active Wear vs. Slacker Wear?

Wow – it has been awhile since I’ve been able to get my act together to post something new.

Last Friday was a rest day – a much relished day of relaxation. Yet, the remainder of the holiday weekend included over six hours of swimming, biking and running. As a result of this gradually increasing training, my active wear wardrobe has started to get more and more use – as I’ll wake up on weekends or holidays and throw on exercise clothes, even if my workouts are scheduled later in the day – like Sunday’s 5 pm swim practice. This gives my gym bag a slight break – and may also reassure my dad - who sent me a very funny email, “never thought my little girl would ever be a ‘bag lady’ ha ha. You are doing great!!!”

So in addition to my emerging hobo habits, I find myself running all over town in my workout attire between training classes. On Monday, after a lunchtime swim but before the evening's weight training and bike class, I made a quick detour to pick up some groceries - still bearing lovely raccoon goggle eye marks, wet swim cap hair and no make-up. As I was leaving the store, I heard someone call out my name. I reluctantly turned around to discover it was one of my clients. As we stood there talking, I thought to myself - we’ve compared running races in the past – there is a chance he might chalk off my less than stellar appearance to training – ugh – but there is also the embarrassing possibility that he might think I am just some slacker who can’t pull it together on a day off. While we chatted, I tried to figure out a graceful way to drop a “Oh, I just came from the gym – I don’t normally look like this – I’m training for an Ironman so I have an excuse” type of comment into the conversation, but the right opening never materialized.

Then I had an even scarier realization – he had recognized me right away – in a quite out of work context. Yikes!