Matt Makes Me Crazy

 You know how there are some couples where one half of the couple has, maybe, a strong personality or a very conspicuous habit, and you can see HUGE pull that has on the other person? The sort of, "Wow, if I had to live with someone like that, I'd go nuts!" situation? Well, I think, in a way, I might be the other half of that couple- but probably not the way you are thinking.

It's not that Matt has a strong personality, but some how, living with him has desensitized me to some things I NEVER thought I'd be desensitized to. Here is just a punch list:

• While at speed on my bike, I collided with a squirrel, who was flipped into my pedals, bounced off my leg, before he ran away. I screamed a lot, (a LOT) and then rode my bike home.
• Sometimes, I deadlift.
• For more than a minute, I was considering the feasibility of running a half marathon. (I don't have any special love for running, it's just easy to do wherever you are.)
• I ran my first 10k. It took 1hr and 17 min. I repeat, I was running for an hour and seventeen minutes.
• Matt had a race that I didn't want to wait around for, so I made our friend Adam go on a 10 mile hike with me.(We saw the changing of the larches- which was beautiful)
• The previous two bullets happened on the same weekend. My hips are punishing me today. What kind of crazy person have I become??

You see, I live with someone who apparently rides 100 miles a week, who has at least one race booked for every weekend in the foreseeable future, and who gets really weird if he doesn't get a proper sweaty workout in every day. And of course, our friends support this crazy healthy lifestyle by participating in as much running, hiking and biking as is imaginable. It's inevitable that I'd get sucked into this craziness, and even forget that while I can sometimes do one epic thing, stringing them together doesn't make them easier. Ha! Of course, Matt makes all this look quite effortless. He will often ride 14 miles in a day in his commute, then run 5 miles before dinner. And maybe lift weights with me, if I need his help spotting anyway. He ran the 5K version of that 10K I ran, and he came in second. To Jeffrey. Oh, and they both decided to run the 5K, because they had a cyclocross race on Sunday. TWO RACES in ONE weekend. Living with He-man kinda makes you want to stay in shape.

But of course, now he is in the kitchen doing the dishes and singing along to MAGIC! and the pop charts like no one can hear him. ("Marry that girl, I'm gonna marry her anyway...") I suppose this marital influence goes both ways.

On perhaps a related note, I'm struggling to make my weight lifting goals (2-3 times per week, training to squat, deadlift and press my own weight). I'm about halfway there, but it's slow going. Does anyone want to be my virtual weight lifting buddy?