Red-letter day

Hi! It's Laura

Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a good weekend. I had half a good weekend. Great Saturday: sugary snow conditions, beautiful blue sunny sky, and a great skiing companion (The Husband). Sunday, I suffered from some stomach “something” that made the ride home tentative. I was crossing my fingers that I had not contracted the same stomach thing my mother had a few weeks ago. She was sick for a week. It turns out, it was not. YAY

If you were not aware, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I swim (or at least I try). I run into all kinds of issues in the pool, e.g. inconsiderate people, crowds, equipment and me. I have had a long string of unsuccessful swims and I mostly blame myself for getting in my way, self-sabotage if you will.

This happens because I am not good at swimming yet and I do not have the endurance for it that I have for running or cycling. So it is easier to find an excuse to let me get out of the pool than to stay and figure out it.  Then it happened! I would like to say that the beam of light shone upon me and singing from on high commenced but no, it did not. It just happened out of the blue (a drop in the bucket of the 10,000 hours?).

This morning instead of donning my running gear and hitting the treadmill, I put on my swim suit and hit the pool. Since the pool is more quiet than at 7:00 am, 5:30 am rocks. I managed to get in my entire swim workout today and boy, did it feel good. 

I love the rules that we create for ourselves ( mine: I can' t run on the treadmill wet from the pool). Why? ! have no idea. After a conversation with The Husband on the ski lift about the stupid rules we impose on ourselves, I decided to switch it up. So after the pool, I slipped sneakers on my feet, tied up my wet hair (sports bras + wet skin = difficult dressing, thank you lady in the locker room for helping me untwist the back of it) and hit the treadmill.

Well, can we say red- letter day? I started at my normal pace and could not get my heart rate up, I increased my pace, it jumped slightly but not what I had expected. Running today was easier than it has been all month.  Light bulb!  I may have broken through and made progress in my fitness.  This is great and what a morale booster.  There has been a lot of bitching and moaning getting to this point, and today it all feels worth it.  Noteworthy, The Husband also had fitness breakthrough this morning while running with The Dog. So it working out is looking up for everyone.

Now for the bad news, it is time to take it to the next level which means harder workouts as I progress toward my goal. So the bitching and complaining is not quite over yet.

I hope that you are sticking to your goals or setting new ones for yourself.

Play hard & stick with it!

Laura