Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Ahhhhh, bliss

This week of happiness brought to you by the generosity of my best and only sister.  She bought a treadmill a couple of years ago, used it for a while and decided she hated to run and even if she liked it couldn't do it on a boring treadmill.  It's been in her basement doing nothing.  Now it is in mine getting run on daily since its arrival.

It is my new best friend.

Of course like all friends it has it's flaws.  It doesn't go downhill like the ones at the gym that I'm only able to frequent one day a week - if I'm lucky.  But let's be honest that will make me a better runner in the long run.  (ha ha, pun intended!)  I'm still building up my endurance from my injury and I can't lie - it is frustrating as hell not to be able to just run for hours like I could last year.  But, I can see improvement each time thanks to my heart rate monitor and I know it will come eventually.

This weekend was heaven. I ran while Baby Sister was napping and Hubby had taken Big Sister swimming.  Couldn't have done that before.  I ran while Hubby had gone to the gym after the kids went to bed.  Couldn't have done that before.  And I have the option to get up early and run before work now.  To do that before, I'd have had to leave the kids alone in the house, sleeping in their beds, since Hubby is at work at that time of morning.  AWESOME!

I slept better than I have in weeks.  I am less stressed because I can run all my stress away daily.  I'm almost back to myself.  And best of all, I am no longer worried about how I'll survive Ragnar in sixteen weeks because I wasn't able to train.  Now, I'll be a training machine like a good little honey-badger should be.

This one little tweak made all the difference in restoring balance to my life.  No longer do I have to stress at work about how I'll find time to work out.  If I can, I'll lift weights.  If I can't, I just won't.  And either way my training won't suffer.  My healthy and committed mojo is back.  Turns out it was life that had stolen it in the first place and I just wrestled it back.  Go, me!  Now maybe I'll quit feeling sorry for myself and watching TV at night instead of writing and get my first draft finished in the near future...  Imagine writing every night fueled by the endorphins of an amazing run.  I sure can!

By the way, thanks for sticking with me through the whining and bitching times... I can be such a pain when I can't run!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Reinventing myself because life stole my mojo

I'm not entirely sure who swooped in and stole my mojo but I really wish they would return it.  I keep making plans to work out and get back on track with my training for Ragnar now that I can run again.  And day after day life gets in the way and I find myself drained and ready for bed without having lifted a single weight or run a single step. Each day ending with a vow to make it happen tomorrow.

I stepped back earlier this week and tried to take the reigns again by scheduling in my workouts physically on my calendar.  Two workouts with weights happen at 9:30 PM each week after the kids go to bed; running twice during the week at the end of the workday assuming I can actually leave my office on time and run before Hubby has to go to work; a trip to the gym every Friday night; and a long run every Sunday.  I felt so much more in control after I put my "me" time in place.  And then I promptly missed every single workout since then.  I was too exhausted both nights that I was supposed to lift weights in the basement after the kids went to bed and instead went to bed myself.  My run on the workdays both got cancelled due to issues that cropped up at work that had me there late with no time to run.  Long gone are the days where I could keep up with my workload AND spend an hour in the fitness center every afternoon.  I didn't run last Sunday because my foot hurt after having run seven miles during the week and I was scared shitless I was going to reinjury myself and wouldn't be able to train at all.

So yeah, I'm seriously a mess.  Plus I'm giving in to my sweet tooth and eating crap that isn't good for me because its all a viscious cycle.  If I'm eating great and working out I feel amazing and then I don't even want anything that isn't good for me.  But now I am back to feeling crappy because I haven't figured out a way to squeeze everything into every day again which means I turn to food for comfort more often than I should.  I need to pull my head out of my ass is what I need to do.

I ran this morning - the first in a week and a day later than scheduled - and it felt great.  I can see progress on regaining my stamina and endurance even though I'm nowhere near where I was prior to my injury.  Maybe that's also because I am running hills in an effort not to die on Ragnar this year?  Yesterday I ate better and I feel like I might be taking the reins back.  I still don't have all my mojo but maybe if I take it one day at a time it will magically reappear.

I added streaks of red to my hair hoping to fool life into believing I'm someone else and letting up for a bit.  We'll see how much that works.  Meanwhile, I'll take every day as it comes and strive for progress rather than perfection where it comes to eating and training.  That and hope my sister really will let me store her treadmill in my basement instead of hers where I could use it whenever I could squeeze in a few minutes of running.