Ready to Run...Again

The holiday season has taken a toll on my physical and mental health.  I've been very inconsistent in my workouts since...oh, I don't know, October?  I feel very disappointed for not accomplishing the goal I set for myself, but instead of punishing myself and giving up completely, I've decided to stop making excuses and start focusing on one thing:  consistency.

As I reflect on the year 2019 I realize that I'm guilty of setting expectations that I can't meet.  I usually give up at the first sign of failure. When I truly think about why I quit, it's because my goals are often unreasonable.  I struggle with OCD and this compelling need to be "perfect" in my routines, and I end up failing because when one day goes wrong I decide that the whole week/month/year is going to be crap. 

This stops NOW.  I know I've said that before but I believe in my heart things will be different this time.  I'm not going to set resolutions to exercise, eat healthy or do everything by the book.  My one and only objective is to be consistent.  I may not work out every day for 30 minutes.  Some days I may only run 15 minutes. Other days I may sweat for an hour.  As long as I do SOMETHING every day, the end goal will be much easier to achieve.

I've been struggling a lot lately with motivation and inspiration.  Insomnia at 3:10 a.m. sparked my brain to go into overdrive and worry about all the things I haven't done.  It was eating away at me until I chose to stop worrying and just get up and go.  So at 5 a.m. I laced up my Asics and dragged my tired butt to Planet Fitness.

I really had the itch to run this morning.  I have a love/hate relationship with the sport, but for some reason today was the day my legs just wanted to move.  I know I can't jump back into this full speed so a 30 minute run/walk did the trick.  I ran a total of 9 minutes today. I was SLOW.  Slower than slow.  Tortoise speed.  But I freaking did it and I felt so much better when I was done. 

I can't lie to you. There was a lot of internal cursing going on and at one point I may have muttered, "Fuck this!" under my breath, but I finished.  And that's all that counts. 

I know I wanted to run every day for 30 days a few months ago but when life gets crazy busy I often just give up exercise because it's easy to quit.  I am making an active plan not to do this again. 

In order to stay motivated I'm training again.  Dawson wants to run the Point Bock in March.  I crazily agreed to do it again and I'm determined not to throw up halfway through like I did in 2017.  I came in at 3rd to last.  No joke.  I'm ready to improve BIG TIME.

So, here's to Day 1 of my training.  Let's do this!