A day in the life... part ii

Hello All!  I wanted to finish the Coach K daily life post.  We last left off with me crunching numbers, fiddling with physics, and engineering at work.  My job is a pretty standard 9-5 engineering job so I won’t go into details.  I will go into details with the time surrounding my required time at work.  My first “break” comes around 11am when I head out for lunch.  Now, my routine can change drastically depending on one thing; two pups at apartment or not.

If my rambunctious pups are at my apartment, versus being in Asheville, then I will head there for lunch.  I’ll get back to the apartment, make a quick lunch, and then head outside to play with the dogs.  My lunch meal is usually pretty consistent.  I always have a pack of flavored tortillas on hand so I can through together some sort of lettuce wrap.  Most of the time my wrap consists of lettuce, hummus, cheese, tomato, potato.  On the side I’ll have some colorful fruit; today was strawberries!  While I am shoving food down my trap I turn on the tube (Youtube) and watch a random Ted talk.  Ted Talks have really tickled my fancy recently.  I don’t think there is a more enjoyable and entertaining way to be lectured on different topics.  After food is consumed I hook up the puppies and we venture over to a field near the apartment.  Luna and Adelaide, the pups, love to run around the field and tackle each other.  But since this is a lunch break, we only have 10 minutes to play at the park.  Luckily, they play so hard that 10 minutes is the perfect dosage.  We hurry back into the apartment, give them a treat, and I’m out the door and back to work.

3 or 4 hours later it is time to shut the computer down and walk out the gate.  If it is summer I will typically ride the back home and then commute by bike the next morning.  Since I am watching the dogs and it is cold and dark I have fallen into the driving commute.  Either way, I get home and immediately snack on some fruit, veggies, or carbs and then take the pups on a short walk.  After the walk, I will hop on the bike for 1.5-2.5 hour workout, depending on the focus of the day.  Completing the workout will put me right around an acceptable dinner time (7 or 8pm).  So I will start my rice or grilled veggies and then hop in the shower.  Now, I don’t like to waste my time or energy deciding what I want to eat for dinner each day.  I have fallen in love with Making Thyme for Health’s weekly meal plan.  Sarah assembles a list of FIVE vegetarian meals and all of the ingredients.  It is so simple and makes cooking dinner tasty.  The fun doesn’t necessarily end when dinner is made.  Dinner gives me 30 minutes to relax and just “veg” out.  I’ll turn on some documentary or TV show and watch it while I eat.  After eating I will pull out the laptop and fire it up for a little more side work.

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Side work, a true passion for me, is coaching athletes.  The last 2-3 hours of the day are spent programing athletes, digging through their data, reading articles, and reading books about athletics.  I could spend more time doing this but, as Scott Proscia would say “Coach K is a delicate flower”.  My body tends to start shutting down aroun 9PM with eyes closing at 10PM.  I make sure to finish off my day with at least 30 minutes of reading.  Right now the book is “Your 15th Club” by Robert Rotella.  I will write up a summary once I am complete.  Stay tuned for that and more!  And with that, it is lights out and time to enter the dream state.  Some days are spent differently and I can adapt when necessary but there is extreme value in entering “auto-pilot” mode for a lot of your day.  It can help optimize schedules and remove decision fatigue from your life.  This gives you more mental and physical energy at the end of the day for doing more of what you want!
I want you to take a moment and think about how your day goes.  Maybe start a journal for a couple days and see how you travel through your day.  Are there things you can optimize or put on auto-pilot?  Do you already follow a pretty standard routine?  Become aware of how you live your life.

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