Struggle

So sore. Went to my strength training class last night. With the federal holiday, I was able to rope in a friend who had the day off who normally wouldn't be able to make the earlier start time of the class. Too bad, because it was so fun to have her there. Knowing I'd be meeting her there would totally remove some of the struggle from getting myself there every week. (I do usually get myself there, but not without some inner debate between my funk and fit selves.) 

I started this post unsure of its tone. I have been struggling the last week, but also doing some very positive things, so I decided to just freestyle here. Looking back over the last 10 days or so, I see positive and negative. Achievements and setbacks. And I realize that's not unique to this FitQuest, nor is it unique to me. That's just life. So how can I be positive about the negative?

I ran 18 miles last week - that's huge! It included a 6-mile run. I'm very proud of that achievement, but there's a small part of me that fears I won't be able to continue to progress. I have a training program in Excel, where I mark off each scheduled run as it is completed and I have to say lately I've become somewhat ambivalent. I'm really excited to gray out the number in the cell to signal completion (yay!), but then find one eye wandering (not literally) down the sheet and agonizing, "7 miles?! When is that run? No way!" Struggling...

Message From Above interlude: as I was staring at the paragraph and confronting my running fears, the cursor hovered on the toolbar at the top of the screen and displayed this wisdom from the Laptop Gods, "Change system appearance and behavior, or get help." I am soooo trying to change system appearance and behavior! 

So I'm thinking that admitting there is struggle is the first step. Awareness is good. Now what can I do with that awareness? This might be a good time to review and retrench. I'm on top of the running at the moment. That is my anchor, my main fitness activity with built-in progress points, increasing challenge, fairly easy to execute. (Well, "easy" is not the word, but it can be done anywhere with minimal equipment, etc.) Yoga has fallen off a bit. Or rather, I have slacked off on the yoga. This, too, is something that could be done independently. There are a couple classes I enjoy at my gym (a sunk cost as the membership is already paid, so why not go and maximize the investment already??), but could also be done at home via iTunes or using one of the many routines I happen to have from back issues of Yoga Journal or yoga books I own.

I also think I've been slipping back into on or off eating. I wrote about trying to check in with measuring some commonly eaten foods, like last post's peanut butter debacle. You say tablespoon, I say teaspoon. Let's call the whole thing off. No! Off is bad. My food planning and tracking has been a huge (you guessed it) struggle of late. I don't really plan per se, just try to have a variety of healthy fair on hand, which requires me to rely on the tracking part of the equation. And if I don't track one meal, there's no point in tracking the next and the whole thing snowballs until I can't remember when I last recorded what I ate - or what I ate for that matter. And it couldn't be easier to do! I do it online and the database is full of stuff I eat regularly. 

Alright. Enough whinging then. I already did the strength class this week. (Yay, one cell in the spreadsheet tackled!) I will do the runs. I will do some yoga, even if it is a solo session at home. I will track every meal this week and focus on assessing portion sizes. Struggle be damned, I know I can do these things this week. And I'll worry about next week when I get there.