Archive for July, 2010

paying the price

Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Photo by Helen
Today I did my first workout in almost three weeks. All I can say is OWEE!

I did a 10.2km walk with my half-marathon training group. I walked with a couple of women with whom I keep the same pace. We each exclaimed that we felt we were walking slowly, and not at our usual speed. Each of the others had done quite a bit of walking yesterday and last week. I had done nothing.

The curious thing was that though we felt we were walking slowly, we actually did quite a good pace and finished in just over an hour and a half. That’s a bit slower pace than I would want for the half-marathon, but not as slow as I felt I was going.

I was most definitely pooped afterwards though, and very stiff. The two weeks of very light walking didn’t keep my fitness level up. Oh, well. I have nine weeks to race day. And I know I’ll be able to improve my speed.

As for the food bit … always the most difficult aspect of my wellness. I could have done a lot better making food choices while I was away, but at the same time I could have done a whole lot worse. The unusual blip for me though, was this – I had an alcoholic beverage, and sometimes two, everyday for two weeks. I have never, ever done that. I didn’t regret it for a moment, and I haven’t had one since I returned. It was just a curiousity for me.

Getting back on my path, and getting back to the gym tomorrow morning. Oy! I can feel the pain already.

Robotic Responses

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Confession time. I’ve blown off my workouts lately. I don’t even need an excuse to to stop doing the “right” thing, I just stop.

I need to figure out how to turn the robot part of me on so that I’ll continue to do my morning workouts, and make the correct food choices. I’m doing the half-marathon walking training partly because there’s a group involved, so I haven’t blown that activity off. I know that it may seem that if I just worked with a trainer again for the morning workouts I’d go, but I don’t think so. At least I’m not ready to find another trainer.

Sometimes the exercise feels like work I don’t like. And sometimes it feels like work I do like. I feel so much better in my body when I incorporate the activity and the correct food choices. Yet, somehow, I can sabotage myself and not do the activities and make the right choices.

Complain, complain.

Let’s look on the bright side … o.k. I’m off on another trip in the next couple of days. Exeter-Yeovil-London-Paris-Barcelona, with most of the time in Yeovil and Barcelona. I’m very much looking forward to it. I’ll be able to continue my walking for sure, and I’ll actually have a good excuse for neglecting the gym workouts.

I know the button to turn on the correct responses is somewhere in me.