It's January. I'm tired, sore, and feeling like I need to pack 36 hours worth of work into every 24 hour day. Yeah, it's time to go back to the gym.

This may seem counter-intuitive -- why go to the gm when every cell in your body is screaming you don't have time? -- but in my experience, that's when it's most essential. The reason why is simple: perspective. Exercising for 30-60 minutes causes you to downshift and all but forces you to think about something else.

Moreover, exercise helps loosen you up (at least once you get past the initial soreness of "the return") and burns calories, all of which helps you sleep better. Which helps alleviate stress. Which makes it feel like you have 28 hours worth of work to do in 24.

Hey, I never said it would solve all your problems.

For my part, I'm going to be returning to my standard exercise routine of gym-pool-gym, which mixes things up nicely and gives me a chance to finish my master plan of re-watching Alias Seasons 1 and 2.

Now where did I leave my sneakers?

It's been about a year since I blogged anything about my attempts at geek fitness. Not because I haven't been doing anything ... but because I haven't been doing it consistently. I've been going to the gym periodically, but but nothing like the regular 4-5 days a week I was doing it a year ago.

The results show. Last year at this time I was 208 lbs, right now I'm weighing in at 216. I can blame a summer of hard work (mostly the computer kind unfortunately) for a lot of this; in fact, I'd be willing to bet I put on 4 lbs. in July and August alone.  So with the summer crush over, and the start-of-semester one abating, I'm doing my best to get back to the gym.

It's been slow going -- I've been averaging about three sessions a week, four if I'm lucky, but I figure it's better to go some days than no days. I also want to get back to swimming two days a week. It's my favorite form of exercise, and since I do it in the middle of the day I don't have to worry about work crushing that time out of existence when some crisis unfolds at 4:55 p.m.

My immediate goal is to get back to something resembling consistency, and then focus on losing those eight extra pounds (and a few more beyond that). 

I'm doing the bachelor dad thing while Sue's away at a PowWow this weekend, so I figured it'd be a good thing if we started off our day with some exercise. I packed some zucchini bread and milk for the kids, loaded up the wagon our baseball mitts and Lucas, then walked to the Cosmic Cup for morning coffee while Jordan road her bike. Coffee in hand, we walked back home, deposited the bike in the side alley, then walked down to Nevin Park for breakfast under the trees.

After that the kids and I ran around on the playground equipment and swung on the swings, taking occasional breaks to play catch. All in all, a good start to the day, the only downside to which was the whining from Jordan about how tired she was on the walk back home.

It wasn't a hard work out, as things go, but it got my heart pumping climbing the hill back from the park, and tired out the kids so I think we can declare mission was accomplished.

With the pool closed today, I went to the gym instead and worked out on the elliptical machine for 30 minutes. In my ears: Gut Check Cast #15. On my screen: Ghostbusters.