A Goal…an Accomplishment..and a Rut

Remember me?  It’s been a long time since I last posted anything to my blog…3 months and 3 days to be exact.  You may not have missed me but I definitely missed you 🙂

The last time I wrote I had just completed my summer fitness challenge for myself.  I had been to the gym Mon thru Fri every week for 3 months.  All of June, July and August.  I accomplished my fitness goals and was feeling pretty proud of myself.  I was also feeling something else….total EXHAUSTION!  I think I can officially say that I burned myself out.  Oh, I didn’t do anything horrible like go into adrenal failure or anything like that.  I just physically, mentally and emotionally burned myself out of fitness for a while.

I spent much of September and October trying to get back into the routine.  I lifted a little.  I did a little cardio.  Mostly though I just took time off.  It was at least 10 days into September before I even attempted to enter the gym.  Part of that was because school started and other obligations got in the way.  But, part of it was also the total lack of desire to go.

My rut has continued on through the fall.  The last time I know for sure I lifted weights was October 11th.  I still don’t have any desire to lift and the lack of doing it is starting to show.  I haven’t gained any weight but my body composition is changing.  I am swapping out muscle for fat.

In spite of all this, what I am finding is that I am normal.  I’m finding that many people go through exactly what I am going through…even people who are in better shape and have been at this much longer than me.  The drive and motivation ebbs and flows.  It gives me hope that this cycle will come to an end soon.

I haven’t given up on fitness completely.  My diet isn’t perfect but it is still better than average.  I’m also slowly rediscovering a desire to run.  You may recall that near the end of my summer fitness challenge I began to loathe all things cardio.  I still don’t want to get in there and pound out a bunch of high-intensity intervals but I am interested in building endurance and “learning” to run distances.

A friend of mine who runs shared a beginning runner program that she used from Runner’s World Magazine and I used it for about 4 weeks.  I did pretty well with it.  I have gotten to the level where I can do several intervals of 3 minutes running and 1 minute walking without feeling like I’m going to die.  I call that progress! 🙂  Then I discovered a new blog called My Fascinating Life http://carolinecalcote.com/ This amazing woman lost over 100 lbs using the Nutrisystem diet.  Then she gave herself the challenge of learning to run a 5K.  She used a program from Cool Running called Couch to 5K.  It is now called Ease Into 5K.  I decided to give it a try and added some music to my routine as well.  What a difference that has made.  I don’t know why I ever stopped using my ipod to do cardio with.  It is so much easier to just get lost in the music and not think about how much longer I have to run.

My running workouts last about 30 minutes, 3 times per week.  I get in, I run, I get out.  Sometimes the weights whisper to me when I’m in the walking part of my intervals.  Hopefully some day soon I’ll head over there and pay them a visit.  In the meantime, I am content to learn to run and who knows…maybe next summer’s challenge will be to actually run a 5K.