Perception

What do you see when you look at the picture above? To me, it looks like a falling fox, ears streaming back from the speed of the fall. Our cabin is made of wood and there are lots of knots and swirls in which I can easily imagine that I see many things.

I now realize that I have been doing something similar in my push-up routine. I have been working toward 100 push-ups for more than a year and in the last week I got to where I did 98 in my first set. Almost there! I rested four days and set up our camera so that I could record myself as I made my first serious attempt at the big goal. I wasn't too surprised to fall a bit short with only 95, but I was surprised when I watched the play-back of the short video. I knew I wasn't doing perfect form push-ups, but I hadn't realized they were that bad. Over the months I had perfected a method of doing push-ups that required very little movement at all-- arms spread too widely, vertical movement too minimal. So I had been deceiving myself, believing what I wanted to believe.

Here is another example-- but not such a disturbing one:
That's a shot of my bicycle odometer taken early this spring. The bottom line shows the total miles, and when I look at it, I like to think it reads 99,999 miles. In fact, it is only 9,999.9 miles. Still, that's a real milestone--the first time I had ever "rolled-over" the odometer on any bicycle. (I've ridden a lot more miles than that, but usually the battery gives out on the odometer and it gets reset before rolling over.) Equally deceptive is the second line of the odometer which supposedly shows my maximum speed on the bike--70.8 mph. I've no idea how that reading showed up, but it is about 30 mph faster than I have ever gone on the bike!

Anyway, my reality check about push-ups means that I'll go back to a more balanced and less obsessive upper-body workout. I may never get to 100 push-ups, but I will get stronger.