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 |
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