Excuses excuses excuses

I really, really didn't want to go to the gym today.  I woke up exhausted, I had a lot of work to do, and it just seemed like a good day to blow it all off.  I was successfully chillin' on the couch tweeting with the Princess Party Crew looking for support in my laziness when I get the following from my dear best friend Becks.

 

Okay, so really, I knew that gross hair was not a good excuse to not go to the gym, but it was the one I was going with.  Yes, yes I did think it would work and I would get some sympathy.  It didn't out work that way and I had to fess up.

 
It was.. the last walk was super rough and had be doubting myself so much. I felt horrible afterwards and I didn't want to deal with that again. Then, there it was... "Jeff says so!" She really did it, she went all coach on me. 

The "Jeff" in question is Jeff Galloway, who is the official runDisney Training Consultant.  But even before he took on that role, he was someone that I really looked up to for his years of experience, and most importantly Jeff Galloway gives props to walkers.  It's not always easy to find people in the running community that give walkers their due, but Jeff... Jeff actually wrote the book on walking.   He also developed the Run/Walk training style that so many athletes today use to get themselves to the point they want to be at.  As a walker vs. a 'legit' runner I still have to give up the props to what Jeff says. 

I got off the couch, got dressed (wearing compression shorts for some extra back support) and headed to the gym.  I walked 1.5 miles in 35 minutes, the pace was slow (23 minute mile) but I felt pretty good.  I need to work on strengthening my hips some because about 20 minutes into the walk they were feeling fairly weak.

My entertainment while walking today included Travel with Rick Episode #189, which takes you along on the Castaway Cay 5K.  Check it out below!



Hopefully I will continue to feel strong throughout the day.  We'll see. 

So tell me, what stupid excuses have you come up with in the past to talk yourself out of a work out?  Leave me a comment and let me know!

Walk / Flare / Cry

Yesterday I did my first walking workout in a year.  I did about 1. 3 miles in 30 minutes on the indoor track at the YMCA.  My time was slow and it was exhausting, the only guy on the track that seemed to be slower than me was an 80 Year old man using a walker.  But I didn't feel horrific during the walk just tired. 

Flash forward 5 hours and my back is really not happy with me.  Another 5 hours and I was in a full on Fibro flare with pain upwards of an 8 on a 1-10 scale.  The only thing that didn't hurt on my body was my head, but my head was causing me all sorts of other problems.  I quickly spiraled down into an "I'm fat, and ugly, and there's no way I'll ever be able to do a half marathon, I can't do this" pity party.  Crap.  I took some heavy pain medication and headed to bed.

Before the pain got out of control I remembered that when I was working out previously I was following a pattern of Ride - Walk - Rest.  I can't remember being in this much pain after walking before, but I must have come up with that rotation for a reason.  The pain is better this morning with just my back twinging.  I decided that I needed to take an extra rest day today, so tomorrow I'll go back to the gym and use that rotational schedule.  Ride - Walk - Rest to give my body the best opportunity for recovery after the walking (and eventually running) work outs.

I was doing so great with the bike rides and feeling great about working out again, yesterday's walk did rotten things to both my body and my head.  What am I thinking, can I REALLY pull off a Half Marathon?  Seriously?  I have roughly 379 days to get to the point that I can run/walk 13.1 miles in roughly 3:45:00.  Today it seems completely insurmountable. 

Off the Couch

Source: Uploaded by user via Angie on Pinterest

With some motivation from my BFF today, I got up off the couch, out the door and to the YMCA again.   It's frickin' -2 outside, and that doesn't include the wind chill, which is mighty.  Right now for me it really is true that the hardest part is just deciding to do it and getting up off the couch. 

I spent another 35 minutes on the bike and felt fairly good about it.

On my iPod: Be Our Guest Podcast

I went back to the gym today

I did it!  I actually went back to the gym today!  It's been almost an entire year, I've got a broken toe, the freezing weather plays havoc with my fibro, but I did it!

I decided that I need to get some baselines, because without them I won't know when I make improvements.  I'm probably going to wait a few weeks before I get on the treadmill though.  I don't want to stress my foot too much while that toe is healing.   Today I worked on the recumbent bike.  I figured that even with my broken toe I would be able to handle that, and I was right!  I just took it easy, and rode nice and steady.  I did 6 miles in 35 minutes.

The best part was that it felt pretty dern good.  That's right, I said it, I worked out and it felt good.

While I was on the bike I was browsing facebook and my friend John posted this fantastic video, which he was passing on from our friend Rick.  It was a fantastic motivator!


Be awesome my friends!

Time to just do it

Source: Uploaded by user via StyleSweets Magazine on Pinterest

Tori, Katie and I have been talking about going back to the YMCA.  We miss our gym membership, and even though it's going to be a rough sum to swallow financially, we all feel like we really need to start going back.  We were happy going to the gym, we felt good.

Lately, we have not been feeling very good about ourselves.  A LOT of that has to do with outside influences that are causing our family serious stress.  We're so sick of other people bringing us down.  It's stupid to allow ourselves to be treated so poorly when we've given so much.  We're trying to distance ourselves from those influences and put the focus back on things that we enjoy.

I drove past the Y today and it said that in January there is no sign up fee.  That means that I have today and tomorrow to decide if I'm going to get this membership.  No, not quite.  It really means that I have today or tomorrow to get in and get the membership taken care of.  I think that we have all agreed that this is something that needs to be done.   It's time to just do it.

Stuggling w/ My Workouts

I'm not sure why my past few training days have been so truly miserable. It's probably because I'm so stressed out right now with Geordon losing his job, and me picking up more hours at work. We've got a lot of very basic lifestyle changes coming about, even the way the house runs is taking more effort because it's simply different than it has been for the past 14 years.

I thought that I was going to have to give up my gym members, but I'm going to keep it for at least another month. I really want to be able to get back into the routine of working out. I have no idea if I'll even have enough money to fly to Florida and run the Princess Half Marathon next year, but it's a goal that I want to work towards anyway.

Right now, I just need to make sure that I get out and do something. Even if I don't go as far or as fast as I originally planned on, what counts is that I'm up and off the couch moving forward.

Have you ever gone through a training rut that made it that much harder for you to get out there and do it? What did you do to combat the malaise? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Training Update and Life Kvetching

I'm sick this morning, stuffy nose, sore throat, just really not feeling well. However my hips/legs seem to have recovered from our great walk on Thursday so I knew I really should get to the gym. If I take more than one day off, this will never get done. So bright and early, off to the gym Tori & I went.

We biked for an hour while I listened to WDW Radio. The machine said that I made it 9.4 miles, which is not as far as I went last time, but hey, I'm sick! At least I went out and did it. Mostly motivated by the fact that so many of my friends were down in WDW this weekend running the Marathon.

I wouldn't say today has been a good day so far and it's only 11:00am.  I discovered some financial issues that we can't call about and see what's going on until tomorrow at the earliest.  My brain is dwelling on it though, and as I'm trying to prepare for the worst I'm feeling sort of devastated right now.  I hopped that the workout would help, it didn't.  It's nothing bad that we did, I have a feeling that our health insurance has gone up more than expected.  It's a factor I wasn't expecting that may have very depressing consequences.  I guess the failing economy and rising costs may have finally caught up with my family too.  Of course that's just a guess at this point, like I said, we have no way of knowing what's going on until tomorrow at the least.  I just want to cry.  I don't do well being in "limbo".