Just did an easy 30-minute spin on the bike today.  Nothing spectacular but at least I got sweaty.

I gotta admit that for the first time in as long as I can remember, this workout failed to have a significant positive impact on my mindset and emotional state.  Usually a workout really improves my mood, even after a bad day at work.

The physical exertion combined with the psychological satisfaction of having done something that requires discipline and is good for me usually gives me a nice endorphin boost.  But today it just wasn’t there.  Or maybe it was but the amount of endorphins just wasn’t enough to overcome work stress and other factors.

Health and fitness is a mental game.  The more stressed you are the more important it can be to workout to mitigate stress and stay healthy; but the more stressed you are (or at least the more stressed I am) the more likely I am to lack the motivation to get out the door and workout.

For me the key is to make the routine, the habit of working out so strong that it counterbalances any ennui or negative influences on workout motivation.  Right now I am just rebuilding that habit after too long a layoff, so it’s extra difficult to do the right thing.

But I’m two in a row right now. Yay, me.

Tonight I took my first steps back on the path to regular workouts, less stress, and better mental health.  After three weeks without working out I finally went out and ran tonight.

Not impressive I know.  But at least I went out and did it.  And I feel markedly better.  Way better than I should for just doing an easy 5K.

Three things to think about:

1. It is exponentially harder to workout in a social vacuum
2. The perfect is the enemy of the good.
3. A body at rest will remain at rest; a body in motion will remain in motion.

More to follow on those later.

So I’ve fallen off the wagon.  I am completely and utterly out of a workout routine.  I’d include Garmin Connect screen snaps as proof but they’re just too depressing.  I haven’t worked out in two or three weeks (minus a 1500m swim I did this weekend to test out my Garmin Swim which was a Christmas present from the girlfriend).

I also moved this blog off of Tumblr to a WordPress platform.  I didn’t like the formats of the Tumblr posts and the interface wasn’t very nice.

The trick now is to get back in the saddle.  This is tricky; once you get out of a program it’s a tricky psychological maneuver to get back going.  It’s late here and I’m exhausted from a lingering cold and a poor night of sleep so I won’t elaborate right now.  In fact, this whole post is pretty incoherent and maybe even pointless . . . except that at least I’m doing something.

Which is the trick to getting my momentum back in more ways than one.  The perfect is the enemy of the good.  Let’s go out and do some good.  We’ll work on perfect later.

To 375 and beyond!

In another of life’s small miracles I actually did my PU/SU workout on Saturday.  It was a quick 30/30 but it felt terrible.  I definitely felt weak although I can’t quantify that as I failed to record my numbers.  I know.  I know.

Anyway, I don’t have any other updates from the weekend because I didn’t do my scheduled 10-miler.  I was going to.  I really was.  In fact I was actually looking forward to it based on how well my last 10-miler went.

Unfortunately, on Saturday night I had a bout of “flu-like symptoms”.  I’ll spare you the gory details but the upshot was that I was in absolutely no shape to workout on Sunday.  In fact it was so bad I didn’t even go to work on Monday.

Which sucked because 1) being sick sucks 2) being really sick sucks 3) being sick by yourself with noone to complain to/take care of you sucks 4) I really WAS looking forward to my 10-miler and now I’ve missed/failed on two (maybe three?) of the programmed long runs in my run plan.

So now it’s actually Tuesday night and I’m posting this mostly to avoid going out and doing the run that I’m supposed to be doing tonight (2x1600m // 200m recovery).  I am not feeling motivated about this at all.  Work is a little stressful, I’m tired, I’m hungry, it’s pitch black outside and I’m not motivated.  Did I mention that?  The irony is that those conditions are actually a great REASON to go out and run and suck some endorphins.  And yet … here I sit NOT going out for my run.

The internal struggle continues … 

Tune in tomorrow to find out what happens …

There was supposed to be a workout for Thursday, 13 December, but instead I went to bed at 19.30 and woke up at 04.30.  I was pretty tired.  Bad habits and a lack of sleep discipline during the workweek catching up with me.

The upside though was that I was finally awake early and actually did my workout (6-mile easy run) BEFORE work.  Shocking!  For some reason my Garmin completely lost the data for this run, but I swear I did it.  Here’s the manually entered data I did based on what I remember from looking at my watch during my cool down:

My PU/SU gamesmanship failed as I skipped my workout for today.  I’m going to put some of the blame on the fact that I had a conference call for work tonight that threw a monkey wrench into my evening timeline.  I’m planning to do it tomorrow morning and may just change my “schedule” from M-W-F, to Sa-M-W since that’s what it ends up being most of the time by default.  If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  Even if “em” is you.  But never if “em” is Navy.  Remember that boys and girls.

Typical easy Wednesday: easy spin on the bike and PU/SU.  I switched it up this time and did my “wild card” workout in the middle of the week and saved the 30/30 workout for Friday.  I’m hoping that leaving my shortest PU/SU workout for my least motivated day will help game myself into actually doing it as scheduled.  We’ll see… 

I set a PR in the Deck of Cards workout, 18:45.  Not a huge improvement over my other attempt, but better is better.  Right?

I’m leading out with this graphic because I want everyone to see the elevation profile of this run.  The program called for a 6-mile run (3-miles hill run at tempo with recovery down hill).  This isn’t the Himalayas but it sure FELT effective.

Considering I overcame a titanic bout of “I-don’t-want-to-go-out-and-do-this-tonight” to make myself leave my house at 18.30 and drive 20-minutes to the start point I am inordinately proud of myself for having done this tonight.  It took all of my sneakiness and trickery to get myself off the couch and out the door.

And the result was a great run on a relatively cool, starry night.  Good stuff.

Here’s the numbers:

Push-ups and sit-ups today.  I have been more inconsistent with PU/SU improvement than I have with the running.  I’m not entirely sure why since I’m actually “better” at push-ups and sit-ups relative to my goals than I am with the run.  You’d think (or at least I would) that I would “do what I’m good at”.

But as terrible as I am at running I actually kind of enjoy it.  Sometimes.  In some ways.  But push-ups are just awful.  I really don’t like them.  I don’t even feel good about them after I’ve done them the way I do with running.

The upshot of all this is that I’m doing terrible at my push-ups and “meh” at the sit-ups.  I need to put more emphasis on this.  I think I’m going to start doing so sub-maximal sets of push-ups through the day on my PU/SU off days.  One, in order to build some volume and two, to inure my mind to the experience of push-ups and hopefully make me dread them less.

Today’s numbers:

Felt like a good run.  Pretty happy with my effort and the results.  Especially considering I kicked a paving stone three minutes into my tempo effort and nearly broke my toe (I was wearing my Five Fingers for the first time in a LONG time).  Foot was sore all day.  Toenail turned black before the end of the run.

This run is also noteworthy because it happened in the morning.  That’s right.  A daylight run.  Those things can happen when you go to bed early and get plenty of rest.  You know, like I’m NOT doing right now.  

Sigh. 

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