Thoughts for Thursday:The Next Big Thing

You know what’s interesting? Reading someones blog who is insightful, and open, and transparent about the things going on in their life... and apparently very modest (and by “someone”, I’m referring to the “royal” me, but I digress ;) and think, “Wow! She’s an over-sharer!”

Yeah, well... I am, and I looove to share way more than is appropriate at times, except for the times that I don’t.

Like right now.

I’ve been keeping something from you - my loyal blog readin’ peeps. And I feel (mostly) bad about it.

But it’s confession time...

*deep, cleansing breath*

I... I don’t know how to say it, but... here goes....

I signed up for an endurance type race.

::crickets chirp::

Yes... really... that’s it. That’s huge!

Don’t believe me? Go back to this time last year and look at the many (I’m too lazy to look ‘em all up) moanings and groanings of ‘training’ for the Race for the Cure 5K... I’m a lifter not a runner demmit!

And swore that it would (probably) be my last (that year) for. eber. (till later anyway)

Then I totally rocked the race... but burnt myself out (thank you thyroid and stressed adrenals!) and totally swore off doing events. They’re not for me thankyouverymuch.

Except for this one... http://www.warriordash.com/register2011_arizona.php

That was the first one in a long time that made me sit up and do a ::head tilt:: of interest.

I get to run, jump, swing, play, swim, climb AND drink beer then they give me a silly hat?! Serious?! It’s like a CrossFit playground for bada$$ wannabes to test their stuff!

So I hemmed. And I hawed. Then a friend said she’d do it with me... then another one said she’d do it... so I sent in my moolah and omg it’s. on. Saturday!

Here’s the amazing thing (aside from keeping it mostly to myself for 4+ months): I haven’t *trained* for it. Not in the sense that I felt like I /had/ to /train/. Instead, I modified my workout schedule - started with focusing on building more strength, then slowly incorporated more cardio type workouts in the form of intervals to slowly increase my running endurance - doing any where from 4-8 minutes running, and 2 minutes recovery. It did get to the point of feeling like I /had/ to do the run workouts, and it also felt like that was taking over, but if you’re “training” for a sport, you have to *do* that sport.

I’ll be durned if I didn’t do pretty darn well with it as a whole. I can run on average an 11 minute mile now! And can lift a decent amount (but still no full-on pull ups, yet... grrr...)

The only thing I didn’t build into the schedule: Periodization. Ooops... Had some rest days, but didn’t build in low volume time to offset the higher volume. As a result, I’m doing serious rest this week to make sure I *can* do the event on Saturday...This is me living, and learning...

And looking forward to the next thing on the agenda.

Which, right now, is NOT another endurance race (though the hubby planted an idea of a 1/2 M-word in my brain... and it’s for the Marines... dang it... at least it’d be over a year away to rationalize or worm out of. ;)

Again with the tangent, sorry. :)

Anywho, one thing that I’ve realized that is so very important as part of this journey to not only fit into a smaller jean size, but also to really achieve optimal health, is that “motivation” is tricky, and temporary. It’s great for getting you going, but doesn’t /keep/ you going... it’s those habits you build along the way that sustain the healthy life you’re creating that propel you forward.

It’s also looking at achieving a milestone/goal as a launch pad, not a stop sign. Cool, you just did X! Take some time to soak it in and bask in the beautiful glow of that moment... then figure out what to do next.

It took me a while to figure that out. For instance, I was _so_ focused on getting into my wedding dress that after the awesome day, I was stuck, unmotivated, and floundering, and dind’t know why. Ok, partly it was because I was so bloody tired from all the work that went into it, I was pooped! But beside that, I had nothing to look forward to accomplishing afterwards. So, after many naps, I found something else to work towards...

Then I found something else... then something else… and kept up that cycle.

Ya always have to have something to look forward to/fill the void with because if you don’t, someone else will.

At this point I’m really looking forward to: 1) a week off to recover from the Warrior Dash (and some other life stuff that’s happened along the way), 2) taking a vacation with my hubby that will involved hiking, hot springs, celebrating with family and spending time with friends for a couple of weeks, then 3) getting back to work to really start building some serious strength. I know that some of the obstacles on the Dash course will expose some areas that I really need to work on, namely upper body strength. And even though I did a pretty good job of balancing cardio with heavy lifting, the latter is what I miss the most when I feel a little too cardio heavy. Not to mention it’s starting to get flippin’ hot here in southern AZ... perfect excuse to stay in air conditioned comfort. ;) Oh, and there’s the matter of getting to work on my CEU’s for my Personal Trainer cert, and figure out what the heck I want to do with that in the first place...

So how about you? Any big, deep dark secrets you’re keeping from folks? How do you keep yourself moving forward? Any big event you’re working towards right now? Any words of wisdom for my event? Or do you just jealous I’m doing it and you’re not (cuz you know you want the hat. ;)