Lame excuses

177.2
25:33, 2 miles
20 minutes leg machines

Last week I was tight when I worked out on Monday.  Tuesday was much worse, with pain running along the left side of my spine from the base of  my skull to my tail bone.  I went home a little early from work and just laid on a hot pad.  Wednesday I want to the gym to soak in the hot tub, float in the pool, and stretch in the steam room; Seth rubbed my back till I wanted to cry.  By Thursday it was like a post workout ache, but I decided that lugging around a pack and rifle so soon would not be a good idea, so I decided to spend the weekend doing Christmasy type things with my kids instead of deer hunting, avoiding anything more strenuous than walking a lot and watching parades.

By last night I was sick of taking it easy, I was determined to get back to working out this week.  So I sat down with Seth and planned my workouts for the week, writing them in ink on my schedule.  After work I picked up the family and headed to the gym. Things still feel less than fantastic, but not warning type pain so I kept going. I even discovered a new machine at the gym: calf extensions!  It may have been there all along and I am just now noticing it.

Running is hard.  It always has been.  My brain and/or body always try to talk me out of it at least once on every run. I have given in to that voice too often lately, and as I result I have logged less and less miles because I incrementally talked myself into believing I was capable of less and less. Its time to start reminding myself of what I can and have accomplished.  I am thinking about hanging all my finisher's medals on the Christmas tree (when we ever get around to putting it up!) so I have to see them every time I walk through my living room. So I can be reminded of how far (literally) I have already come, and refix my eyes on where I want to go.

I also had another idea tonight: journaling all my Lame Excuses.  My fitness journal has several  blank sections that you can customize, so I have now designated the last section (so there is less room) as the Lame Excuse section.  How it will work is I am committing to writing in my journal 5-6 days a week (1-2 rest days depending on intensity of training).  Ideally that would be logging 6 workouts, but on days that I don't have a workout to log, I have to write why I didn't work out.  Some days it will be lame in the sense that it just really shouldn't be accepted as a valid reason not to workout.  Other days it may be literally lame excuses, such as needing to rest an injury.

I am hoping that this will help in 2 ways:
#1 data that I can objectively analyze to see what is sabotaging my workouts (do I need to change my scheduling? is hunger making me feel less energetic?  too much stress? do I need to plan better?)
#2 writing down "I'm tired" or "It's cold outside" will make me face the fact that it is a lame excuse, and hopefully I will go for a run rather than let something little stand in between me and my goals.

Totally stole this idea and picture from other people's Facebook feeds