It’s Easy!

It’s easy!

That’s such a relative term, isn’t it? What is easy for one person, may not be so for the other.

Webster defines easy as ” achieved without great effort, presenting few difficulties”

Reading has always come easy for me. I loved it as a child and was a classic bookworm. Summers were for dragging bags of books home to get immersed in.

Words come easy to me. It’s satisfying to use them in creative ways, to paint pictures and to be able to describe and tell a story.

Now imagine my shock when one of my sons really didn’t like reading. At all.

Why? Because it was work for him. It was hard and he had to have no distractions otherwise it didn’t “stick”.  Words were hard and he did not find the joy in it that I did.

It’s precisely why one year, I too, read “Where The Red Fern Grows”, out loud to him.  In reading it to him, it somehow stuck better, and even though he was older we both enjoyed that time each night reading a chapter so he was ready for the quiz the next day on it.

Word got around that was going on and soon his friends who hadn’t read would ask him…”so what’s going on in the current chapter?”

But ugh… seriously… damn sad book. Tears fell for both of us.

Easy.

Reading and words were easy for me. My son struggled.

I guess we can see this applied almost anywhere in life, right?

The shining athlete, the top scholar, the jack of all trades who can seemingly do anything,  the cook who effortlessly whips a gourmet meal out of nothing but flour, salt, beans and some peanut butter.

Ok, I’m teasing on that, but we all know that ONE person who can work with nothing and make something, and Suzy Q is struggling to follow directions on a box.

Easy.

All of us can do things, can strive for improving on them yet it will never come easy.

Math.

For the love of numbers, I hate math. I’m always semi in awe of people who wield numbers the way I can words.

They look at those algebra equations and it all….makes… sense.

Amazing.  Like how does your brain DO that??

I barely, and I mean barely, skated by my last math class in high school and I really think it’s ’cause my teacher just had a level of mercy on me.

And I did show up for extra tutoring so there was that…..

I was never, ever so glad to say good bye to math class. It’s what freaks me out about ever doing any college stuff. I took a practice exam once for the English and nailed it off the charts.

We won’t discuss the math one…… 😉

Easy.

Easy for some, but not for me.

Hold on… I’m going somewhere….

I was thinking a few times this week during my workouts how some things I view as “easy”, most people think are crazy and can’t imagine doing.  They view it as ridiculously hard.  Hubby tells me all the time he doesn’t know how I do what I do.

This usually comes when we’re driving up a huge hill and I’m telling him what it feels like on bike or foot.  Or telling him about my run/bike/run sessions.

I do it. I don’t think about it. It’s work but it mostly comes easy for me.

Recently doing dead lifts I thought how they weight was starting to feel not as challenging. I’ve been doing around 140lb, at a 3 set 10 reps as a part of my strength  training.

Now some of you who lift a lot.. no laughing.

I try not to overwork my body on weights because training right now, I hit the road the next day and sometimes my legs and lower body are asking why I killed them the day before.

Strength training is icing on the cake for my other sports.

Here’s the deal.

In the term of being “easy”, it’s not.

Honestly, to think of lifting something weighing 140lbs straight up off the floor would seem like work.

My body is going through this wonderful thing called adaptation. I’ve been doing it long enough now that in some ways it’s starting to feel easier, but really, I’m just getting stronger and it means I’m going to have to up my game soon.

 

When it comes to exercise, so many people put at the top of the list, it’s hard.

Why? Well, because in the beginning, it is!

Exercise can quickly reveal to you that you are out of shape and need to be doing it more.

No one likes that feeling.

Exercise really, I don’t think, comes “easy” to anyone. Well, at least in the beginning stages.

And if you’re wanting to continue, grow and improve, if it starts to feel easy, you should be looking at the next step.

How do I get to the easy part?

In the running world, we talk about base miles. Basically, a foundation that you can build on. You train and work in certain mileage that allows your body to get stronger and make those adaptations that come from the rigors of running.

So many cool things change inside your body as it adapts to it. These changes are good and allow you to stay on your feet longer, work harder and go farther distances without injury.

I didn’t wake up one morning and just decide to go run a marathon. It took months of training building my body and adding more mileage each week.

This is how you need to approach getting into a new exercise regime.

It has to be slow and steady, no matter what activity you may choose to participate in. Doing it in this manner not only keeps your body from hating you the next day, it encourages you to keep pressing on to the next step.

And for you the next step might be literally committing to evening walks around the block.  Or it could mean increasing your distance if you’ve stayed at the same distance forever. You could be thinking of dusting off the bike in the garage ( and you better be wearing a helmet!)

Maybe you want to start lifting some weights. I can’t stress enough to make sure it’s heavy to make you work. I mean maybe 4-6 reps before you can’t lift one more.

Find a starting point and then build from there. Always be mindful to do enough, but not to much in the beginning, to avoid injury.

With a careful, intentional approach, in time you will find yourself thinking that what once seemed so hard, now seems easy.

Tell me. Can you relate? Have you moved from a point of it being hard and painful to feeling easier?