Saturday, July 17, 2021

Finding The Motivation

 

Renewed Focus (again)

I seem to recall being reasonably focused and kinda fit in 2019.  SheilaT and I were among the few to finish the Grand Gravel 500 in the spring.  I had a solid 260 mile Texas Water Safari early summer then headed out to try the west coast to east coast Bike Non-Stop just 2 months later.  This was a failed attempt, but fitness was not the issue.  After I returned home, I had no problem cranking out the El Camino gravel 100 in east Texas. 

It was November 2019 I noticed a switch.  I didn’t want to do the workouts.  The actual training.  I super enjoyed getting home from work and plowing through a bag of chips, usually with a glass of wine.  Consistency is my worst thing anyway, but this was different. Burnout?  My diet and being sedentary were definitely starting to show results – in a bad way.  I put the GG500 for 2020 on my calendar thinking that having a goal would help.  It did not.  During my annual trip to the Big Bend desert in the winter, my lack of fitness was quite evident.  I came home and made weekday morning hill repeats my friggin job. 

Then with spring, came the pandemic.  All events were cancelled.  That was sort of OK by me as it took the pressure off of trying to get back into some sort of presentable condition.  I kept up the hill repeats and added longer rides with more elevation.  I saw my fitness metrics improving though the weight was not really coming off – the chip/wine habit was now fairly ingrained.  Then in the fall, the wheels came off.  A work project I’d been involved in for more than a year was finally rolled out and it was not pretty.  I was working (from home at least) long days and weekends.  I had this fabulous excuse to not do anything.  And I didn’t -  through the fall and winter of 2020 and through the spring of 2021 (where we also sold our house and moved).  I had to buy new clothes.  Even the most basic ride with friends was too much.  Something had to change. 

I found some inspiration from an old friend who was on the other side of a similar struggle.  She recommended a training program that I signed up for.  Its been 2 weeks and I just got home from arguably the most difficult structured workout I’ve ever done on a bike.  But it didn’t kill me and my metrics are improving.

This sounds terribly rambling (my mother, who is probably reading, is saying aloud “and boring”) but sometimes I just need to put things out to the universe.  I hope later I’ll go back and read this and say “Good job!” and be forgiving.  The struggle is real.  Trying to be an “athlete” with my fluffy eastern European gene, post-menopausal self is on-going hard work. 

 

Current helpful mantras (I have a lot more):

Show up - Rebecca Rush

Your brain will tell you what ever it needs to to keep you comfortable.  Ignore it. (maybe Billy Rice)

Don’t over think it, just go (my sister 💚)


Trainer is under cover but outside, in Texas.  Just sayin