Dates: 1/10/23 – 1/13/23
Training Week: 0 (I’m starting over, again)
Time: 62 min (Tue & Fri, easy run) + 30 min (Thu, walking)
Activity: Yoga (Fri)
Mobility/Stretching: Yes
Ate Well: Yes

Commentary: The blahness greeted me when I woke up on Tuesday, but at least I managed to get a run in. The run didn’t feel the greatest, but it didn’t feel the worst. I also had PT that morning, which was alright.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have two classes, and they are both upper-level grad classes. One is advanced programming for GIS, and the other is advanced drone image analysis. After day one of these classes, I was fucking stoked!

Lower-level classes are alright. I understand that a foundation needs to be laid for most folks. In many cases, I’m one of those folks, but when it comes to GIS, I can figure out a lot of the basic stuff on my own. My class on Mondays and Wednesdays is a lower-level class, and although I’m not excited about it, I am grateful for it. Since it’s basically a repeat of my class last semester, it will be my easy class.

Wednesday morning I planned on getting up early to do some form of strength training. I did get up early, but instead of working out, I had a mini meltdown. My husband and I got in a bit of a tiff the night before, but we worked through it before bed. I woke up to find he hadn’t made me lunch. Normally, this isn’t a big deal, but that morning it brought back a rush of childhood trauma.

My father used to be a very angry man. When he got angry he would shut down. He wanted to talk things through, but he didn’t know how. So, instead of initiating a conversation, he would do little things to fuck with me and/or mom until we broke down and talked to him. One time when my father was mad at me, he stopped making me dinner. I would come home from school, and he would be sitting at the table with one place setting, eating dinner.

My husband had set an alarm to get up early and make my lunch since he hadn’t the night before. Since I didn’t know this my mind began to wonder if he purposely didn’t make me food like my dad used to do. I’m so glad he got up because I was able to cry on his shoulder, tell him my traumas, and move on.

At work, I managed to pass an exam I needed to officially qualify instructor! I also told myself right off the bat that it would be a silly day and to have zero expectations of what I might be able to accomplish. It worked! I actually had an okay day at work! My carpool, on the other hand, has adopted a new person, and I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of this person in our carpool. My coworker friend who just moved from operations to engineering suggested he and I form our own carpool. I think that might be a good idea.

Thursday morning I woke up early, and I had no motivation to run. So, I didn’t run, I walked/hiked on the treadmill instead. During the hike, my favorite iFit trainer, Tommy Rivs, talked about all the feel-good chemicals produced by exercising. It had me wondering if my lack of activity caused the blahness. After class, I spent the last two and a half hours of work standing at my desk. I shall not lie, standing for that long was a wee tougher than I anticipated.

Throughout the day I could feel the blahness starting to lift. Classes went well, and I even chatted with a classmate for a bit. For the first time in forever, I was productive at work. I even did my PT exercises in my office! It felt like the beginning of the end of blahness.

This morning I got a short treadmill run in. It was a walk-run sort of run because, again, I didn’t feel like running. During the walk portions, I eyeballed the Tommy Rivs running series on iFit. To help get myself ready for the Behind the Rocks 50-miler, I’ve decided to do two of the series. I’ll start with Part 2 of his 10k series, which is four weeks. Then I’ll roll into Part 1 of his half marathon series.

I feel like using the running series is a good way to trick fuck my mind into training better. Hear me out! These days, when I go into iFit to pick my runs, I tend to look for ones that are short and don’t have much elevation change. By following a series, I’ll just go to the next workout without cherry-picking. At least that’s how I’m hoping it will go.

Ideally, close to race day I’ll be averaging about 10-12 hours of training a week. The half marathon running series only gets up to about five and a half hours per week. My plan is to do weighted treadmill hikes a few evenings a week, as well as some real hikes/walks on the weekends to get me that extra five hours. If I’m super badass, I’ll walk around campus between classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Oh, and I think I finally found my motivation to do yoga on my days off and on my rest day. During my practice today I noticed how not flexible I am anymore. I also felt quite weak in a few poses. The yoga will help with both flexibility and strength! To make sure I still get some resistance training in, I plan to do Body Pump on Sundays. Anyway, it feels sooooo good to be headed in the right direction again!

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