Swear I'm Not Dead

I swear.

I've been in a bit of a slump lately. I've been going through some stuff in my personal life - nothing earth shattering and I'm not dying, don't worry! - but it's been taking its toll on my energy levels and motivation.

Honestly, I haven't had much inclination to blog for these past couple weeks (um, no kidding). And even if I had, what would I do? Show you pictures of me eating every carbohydrate (simple, complex, white, wheat, and chocolate chip cookie dough) known to man? Tell stories about how I haven't done any running except for my weekly long runs, and how I haven't gone to the gym more than 4 or 5 times in two weeks?

Thrilling. And not super-healthy.

It takes its toll. The last thing I felt like doing Sunday morning was getting my butt out of bed and going for a run. I did it - and I made a really big effort to fix the problems I had with last week's run, and to make this one an honest reflection of my capabilities. But...I was being hard on myself, and it showed.

I filled my camelbak with ice and Gatorade, and tossed a random Clif gel in the zipper pocket to eat at my turnaround point. Fun tunes on the iPod, Garmin on my wrist, and I was off. I made a conscious effort to keep my pace slower and as steady as possible -- I don't need to do what I've been doing and burn out before I get halfway there, right?

But my slower pace is an effort for me. My body's preferred pace naturally falls around 9:15-9:30 these days, and to take it down to 10:00 takes a conscious effort. I felt awkward and plodding. My camelbak was bouncing and I couldn't find a place to jam the spout so that it didn't snag my headphones. I couldn't seem to shake the negative thoughts. "You're too slow for a camelbak. People who run this slow don't need "fuel," they need to work harder and get better. You can't even run 8 miles today - how are you going to run a half next month? You should just drop out and forget it."

No bueno. No bueno AT ALL. I managed to shake the negativity a bit by my last couple of miles, and I did do a much better job of pushing myself through without stopping, AND of leaving the garmin on when I did stop to get a more honest look at where I am. Splits:



The fact is, though, I'm not going to get OUT of this lil' funkslump unless I just freakin' do it. I could sit around and wait until I FEEL like eating veggies, fruit & yogurt...or I could just EAT that stuff and get rid of the half a pizza that's been in my fridge since Saturday.

I did that this morning. Bye bye, dried-out pizza. (I suppose it's actually a good thing that the half-pizza sat there in the fridge, drying out, instead of me eating the rest of it Monday night.)

I could sit around and wait until I FEEL like going back to the gym and spending some QT with Tony, or I could just GO EVEN THOUGH I WOULD RATHER SIT ON THE COUCH IN MY FAVORITE SWEATPANTS.

I did that yesterday. 35 minutes of cardio (25 on the bike, 10 on the elliptical) and P90X chest/shoulders/triceps. (Note: weeks and weeks without doing a one-armed pushup will have a pretty big effect on your ability to attempt one-armed pushups. Rocky Balboa I am not.)

I could sit around and wait until I FEEL like going grocery shopping...or I could just get in the car and go.

I did that last night. Now I finally have fresh fruit again. Cherries! Peaches! And my precious Starbucks VIA. And green beans to roast with onions and mushrooms. Thus making it far, far less likely that I will either order a pizza, or walk to the corner store where I will suddenly decide it is far less work to purchase a bag of pita chips & tub of hummus for dinner.

I'm getting there. I even ate veggies for dinner TWO WHOLE NIGHTS IN A ROW. (I took pictures, too, but I forgot to bring my card reader to work.)