Thankfully, I don’t think this post won’t precede another “wagon bursting into flames” picture, but it got very close.

I feel like I’m in somewhat a holding pattern right now as far as motivation goes. Toward the beginning of this month, I decided that I was going to take a week off from working out. Aside from the nagging plantar fasciitis, I started to get more and more little tweaks. None too serious, it wouldn’t make me sit any days, but it would make me ease up during the work out.

The tweaks started moving from the plantar fascia to the achilles, to the other achilles (likely from compensating), to a knee, to a shoulder. My post workout stretching/icing routine was beginning to be as long as the workout itself.

I remember one of the trainers at OTF told me that periodical breaks are very necessary. He said when he’s in hardcore training mode, he’ll go extremely hard 5 days a week, and after 5 weeks he would take a full 5 days off from both working out and nutrition.

While my intensity isn’t has high his, I probably can go longer than 5 weeks without needing a little break, just have to listen to the body. I feel that doing something like this is equally a mental break as it is a physical break.

Of course, it doesn’t always go to plan….

Stressors in my personal life, professional life, in the middle of finding a new apartment, and other factors built up all at the same time during this little break.

My one week break started stretching out to make room to work at night, I fell into old patterns of ordering food because it’s quicker, despite both the health and financial benefit when cooking yourself.

Both nutrition and physical aspects were teetering off the edge, I even stopped stretching, which is a huge mistake, especially with the achilles. When injured, scar tissue forms around the tendon and strengthens it, unfortunately scar tissue isn’t very elastic, which is the most essential function to the achilles, and the rigidity can lead to another injury.

I know all this, yet, I still didn’t have the motivation.

Then, to make things worse, I started beating myself up over it.

These are some of the things, I’m learning quickly, that I just have to power through. Everyone says the mental aspect is the most difficult, and I really didn’t quite understand that until now. Just the drive to keep doing something incredibly difficult. Without beating yourself up, comparing yourself to others, gaining animosity towards others that seemingly don’t need to work as hard, and not give up.

There are a ton of success stories out there, and I hope to be one in the future. It can be done, and it will.

So, went back to the gym this morning after a 12 day break, the cardio portion of the workout was two half mile runs with rowing and pop jacks in between. I was surprisingly able to complete it, at a decent pace too! I did push it too hard because my body still needs to get back into workout mode (hey, learning from past mistakes and not going as hard as I possibly can every time!), but I really am proud that I completed the entire workout!

Walking to get lunch afterward, saw many people running down the sidewalk wearing bibs, there must be a race going on, and that re-energized me to get started training for the 5k I signed up for. September is only a few months away and it’ll creep up quicker than you know.

So, I think I avoided a full on spiral out of control with wagons bursting into flames. Once I move in two weeks it’ll be easier to get cooking since my kitchen is in half-packed disarray.

I’m going to get back on track, finally get the scale moving in the correct direction, and I’m gonna rock out that 5k come September!