I used to really love running. Swimming and cycling, too. It's a love I can't articulate. I looked forward to getting out, getting some sun or surf, and relaxing.
Then in September 2015, that changed. My mom got cancer, and everything got dark. It was a treatable cancer, but that didn't matter for my brain. It's like Stan said in South Park when his parents were considering divorce: "Everything just looked like shit." Things stopped mattering.
At the time I was training for my third full marathon. I was 4 weeks out from the race, and I stopped running.
Oh, I still ran the race, but a 4 week hard stop is not the idea taper. It was not a great race. I cried at mile 16 that I was going to be an orphan. (My dad is still alive and good. Again, not rational brain.) It was my slowest race ever.
My athletic pursuits never quite recovered from that darkness. Then I was hit with some bad health news of my own several months later. More and more I dreaded exercise. I sign up for races and run them, hoping I would snap back from this and love running again.
I signed up for a half ironman hoping I would find a new love with Triathlon. I started training late and didn't finish the training plan, so I just ended up drinking some sea water in my struggle during the swim, got a back ache from the cycling since I didn't ride that much, and missed the finish cutoff by 22 seconds because u couldn't will myself to run hard enough. (Oh but I took that finisher medal home, though. Gimmie.)
So here I am, two months after that half iron defeat, trying to figure out what I should do.
I know I need to exercise, because not exercising feels bad and cuts me off from some awesome people I used to do those things with in run groups and cycling groups. But I don't feel the motivation to do anything. I go home instead of working out. I sleep in on Saturdays. Meh. To a lesser degree, everything still looked like shit. So I keep putting it off.
So I signed up for the next Half Ironman in Oceanside (2019). I'm either going to learn to enjoy working out again in any kind of athletic pursuit, or I'm calling it.
Aim: Determine if there is a sport I like doing consistently. If so, do it. If not, packing it in and not feel bad about it. Deadline: April 2019, after half ironman race.
Situation: Years of slacking off. Probably 30 pounds overweight from best weight. Everything looks like shit.
Plan: Do one sport thing at least 2x a week. Log results. Reflect every Sunday. Start lowering carb intake by avoiding refined carbs (esp snacks!)
