Last week was tough. It was hard for me to get motivated to hit training every day. Mostly this was due to residual stress from the 4th of July weekend. It was an ugly stress, not the normal I'm busy with work and life kind of stress.
When ugly stress happens, the typical reaction for me is that my appetite shuts down, and it becomes hard to eat. This time was no different. Not eating enough, or eating all the wrong things because absolutely nothing sounds "good," when trying to train 7, 8, and 9 hours a week quickly becomes a problem. Its one thing to start a workout tired, but entirely another to start one low on fuel. In fact, it SUCKS and it's just plain not smart. And, last season, it was a big part of my undoing.
I think I've complained about this before here. I know we all have our things -- you know those things that seem to keep coming back to bite us in the behind. Things that make life harder, that weigh us down . . . things that quite often are simply methods of self sabotage.
Sometimes I think to myself . . . Hey I'm 40! Shouldn't I be past all of this bullsh*t by now???
I don't think it happens like that. Not sure what I see in the age of 40 that makes me even ask such a question. It's kind of silly. Like being 40 should give me some advantage. Ha!
Fortunately, I was able to (more or less) deal with this under-eating reaction to the ugly stress, and the worst of it lasted only three days. During that time I kept up with all of the workouts except for one, which I started, but quit early in abject disgust. When coach asked me why I quit early I told her that I was stressed and not eating enough.
She wrote back and told me to:
Stay on track J
Yup. Three words and a smiley face. J
There comes a point when you have to decide what's important. Even if you thought you had already decided. I mean, how many times have I spelled out here that the Half Silverman is my DREAM RACE? This is the race that captivated me into hiring a coach and starting to train! This is the race that "got away" last year when I pulled out due to low confidence, training inconsistencies, low confidence . . . . well, you get the picture.
Despite my strong convictions about this race, and about the triathlon lifestyle that I now lead, last week it was hard for me to see the proverbial forest through the trees. I was so worried that the ugly stress would resonate forth from the 4th of July, completely smothering the renewed confidence that I have felt this whole season, causing me to topple like a house of cards. I would miss lunch, then miss a workout . . .this would lead to the inevitable realization that my commitment was shaky, and everything would just fall apart.
That other me who has been full of confidence since Midway, so sure that I was on my way to a strong race in November? For a few days I felt like I lost that person. I felt like maybe I should just quit, that it wasn't going to be worth it.
Stay on track J
Coach sure has a way with words – if you read her blog you already know this!
STAY on track. STAY. STAY.
Coach weaved just enough of a cautionary tale with those three little words.
Oh thank goodness. I am on track. I just have to stay there. STAY.
So I did. And things actually got easier as the week went on. After a great weekend of workouts, I had today off and I'm feeling good. Ready to tackle the next nine hour week of training, and whatever else life holds for me this week. And yeah I'm hungry. So I'm getting a snack. At 10:15pm. Hey whatever works right?
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