This rollercoaster ride keeps having it’s ebbs and flows. When we last left off I was on a roll with my own personal “hell week” type increased frequency. It really worked well for me and I officially lost everything I gained on that 3 week break and was primed to keep going.

In hindsight, perhaps it was a bit too intense. While I felt fine at the time, in fact, I felt GREAT. The workouts seemed to stop being as “good”. In fact, a couple days after last post, I had a very poor workout. Nothing was going for me, even though I decreased both weights on the floor and speed on the treadmill, I was completely wiped.

So much that after the workout, after stretching, I noticed I forgot my water bottle on the treadmill. So I went to get it, and on the way down had a slow motion fall. I felt the treadmill move and me not react, so I sort of caught myself with my other foot.

Hop, Hop, HOP…SPLAT!

While it did hurt at the time, I was more embarrassed than anything else. People all asking “are you okay?!?!” I just laughed, clapped my hands, and hopped up and pretended like it hurt less than it did. It’s tender to the touch, and walking home I could feel it’s swollen, at least it doesn’t hurt to walk which means it’s a bruise.

Small Victory

On the other hand, now summer has reared it’s head, it’s time to put my window air conditioning unit back into the window. I picked up that sucka and carried it to the window. While it was heavy, it was a LOT easier to do when then I removed the unit from the window in the fall.

So that’s a non-scale, non-gym small victory if I ever heard one!

Also, I got a second AC unit for my bedroom, I carried it up 1.5 flights of stairs. It weighs maybe 60lbs and I really had more of a struggle with the size of the box against my stubby arms than the weight itself. So that felt cool, pun very intended.

The Inevitable Confession

However, as you can see with my use of past-tense, and what it usually means when a while passes without me posting here. There was a break.

Again, work related, at least in the beginning. Also, the combination with me easing off the frequency to let my knee heal. At this point, walking is fine, but touching it hurts. Especially going on hands and knees or crossing my legs to put socks on.

This led into the 4th of July holiday, where I attended a big bbq for my niece’s bday on Thursday, and then celebrated a milestone bday for my Mom on Sunday.

Home Habits

As time goes on, I find it increasingly difficult to visit home without everything derailing, especially nutritionally speaking. My mentality goes back to being a kid, and maybe it’s being relieved of getting away from the constant stress of freelance life, but I get incredibly lazy as well.

When I visit home, I visit my sister a lot, play with the nieces, do some laundry, and pretty much just sleep a ton or watch mindless tv. I think I use it as a mental vacation from work, which bleeds over to my relatively new fitness goals. It’s so easy to break into 35 year old habits.

This is something I have to be conscious of moving forward and NEED to find ways to counteract this. Going back to the scale, in that half a week break pre-holiday, then eating horribly over the weekend, I gained 6lbs! I know it’s most water, but damn is that a hit to the morale!

Bad Runs and Toxic Thoughts

Not all is lost though, I did try to run outside twice while I was at home. Unfortunately, both runs were pretty terrible. I barely made it a quarter mile before I had to walk.

Then this leads me to getting angry at myself for being mentally weak.

In fact, in the spirit of transparency, and I feel that I should put this out into the open. Here’s the sort of toxic train of thought that happens as I’m struggling.

• What’s wrong with you, why can’t you do this. You were able to do MUCH more than this just a couple weeks ago.
• Bears 5k is just over a week away, it’s going to be horrible, you’re going to fail (I don’t even have an official goal set yet, but I was confident that I’d fail).
• Why do you keep letting this happen to yourself, this is obviously from the slip-ups.
• It was just a year and a half ago when you had your BEST 5k, now you can barely go a couple blocks, pathetic.
• Why even try, you keep failing. you’re not mentally strong enough or physically strong enough. You’ve been like this your whole life.
• What’s the point in trying when you’re going to fail again.
• You’re single, late 30s. If you were to be gone soon anyway, sure, the family would be sad, but they’re busy and they’d get over it.

It’s around that last one where I have to stop myself and realize just the horrible things that I’m thinking. That’s a freaking dark path to go along just because I had a bad day running.

I didn’t warm up properly, it was hot, I hadn’t eaten anything. There’s plenty of logical reasons as to why it wasn’t working that day, but my mind went there. Just something to keep my mind on moving forward and not let that toxic negativity affect me too much, Or at least be aware of when I’m doing it and try to nip it in the bud ASAP.

Rebounding

So, coming to this week. I cooked the chicken stir fry again, been drinking a ton of water. Worked out Tuesday and plan on going again tomorrow. Already shed 2 lbs of the water weight I packed on.

My workout Tuesday was pretty good, still slower than I’d like, but it is a good rebound from over the weekend.

In fact, a friend that posted a comment on the Baker by the Pound Facebook Page had me thinking that I need to absolutely stop that thinking all together. What I was able to do in the past was great, but I need to stop comparing myself to that, all it’s accomplishing is making myself angry.

So, my goal for the Chicago Bears 5k this Saturday is a more unique one: To complete the 5k, and NOT get angry with myself.

I’m signed up for two more 5k’s after this one, and that’s where I can pay more attention to times/speed/conditioning. For now, let’s forget the past, set a new base, and don’t make unrealistic expectations for myself.

While the knee is pretty much healed, it’s been a good 3 weeks and it’s not completely gone. Even yesterday when we did body weight moves from the hands and knees, I still felt it. So while I don’t feel it walking, I bet it’s affecting my running, especially when going long distance.

If I feel any discomfort in that knee, I’m calling it on Saturday. Not worth the injury.

So, a lot of ups and downs in the past few weeks, but right now it’s starting to come back up. We shall see and I’ll post again soon!