Do you ever play that game “how many times can I hit the snooze button before my feet actually hit the floor” in the morning? You talk to your clock or cell phone, too, “ok, ok, ok…I’m UP.” Well, it’s that time in my training program: I snooze, I lose. The good news is I’ve gotten in a solid few weeks of movement. (Things didn’t go exactly as planned at first, but I did manage to keep the commitment of hitting the gym 5 to 6 days a week!)

Miss Lisa, 95.5 The Hawk

What had originally begun as a plan to jog 2 or 3 miles each day quickly turned into, “oh, no…can I really do this again”? After being out of commission for months because of injury, it was a little scary to realize my ability to focus had simply checked out! A mile or so into a jog my mind would get bored. That can’t be good, right? Thankfully I did some improvising and was able to ease the panic with interval training. So, I did a 10-minute walking warm-up followed by a solid 60 minutes of alternating walking and sprinting. Concentrating on that minute of speed each time helped me start to regain focus. And the bonus is that once I averaged out the sprint and walking times, it gave me an ideal training pace for the start of logging miles again.

A few other things have also come into play as I’ve ramped up to training. I’m probably 80% on target with the diet. I still need to be a little more diligent for maximum effectiveness when I set out for a run. (Cheap gas in the tank generally makes for a bad workout). So my goal in the next month is to bump that up to at least 90% with a little wiggle room to not completely stress myself out. Also, I picked up a Tuesday night yoga class hoping it would help with both focus and flexibility. Let me tell you, it will feel so good when I start seeing yoga’s positive effects. Right now I’m finding I’m about as “bendy” as uncooked spaghetti. ‘Nuff said. Also, I’m a person who’d rather do my workout first thing in the morning. Since I’m up by 3 am and in by 5, the before-work run can’t happen. Sometimes it’s such a struggle in my mind to get in a mid-afternoon workout. But it’s crunch time now, and I don’t have a choice to “hit the snooze button.” I have to get the runs in. And I know from past experience that as long as I follow the plan, I can get there.

I’ve also realized I have a choice between two things with each training step: humiliation or humility. I’m not as young as I used to be. That is glaringly obvious with each ache and pain I feel that makes me wince or with each fatty jiggle I feel that makes me think “what if I’d had just one less piece of pizza?”. But positive vibes should always trump the negative ones, yeah? I can’t choose to be humiliated by things that could potentially bring me to a standstill in training. It’s a better choice to be humbled each time…realizing I can’t change anything that’s gotten me where I am now. All I can do is stick to a plan, make good choices and come out with a smile each time I get a step closer to the goal. Chances are you’ll be saying these same types of things somewhere along the way. Let’s get back to it! Always feel free to e-mail me: misslisa95@aol.com if you want to chat. Good luck in training…and I’ll check back in next month!