Bumps In the Road

I wish I were writing a blog post about how awesome my training was going for the half marathon. I had a few weeks there where I was doing so well–I even lost 8 pounds! And I worked up to running 22 consecutive minutes. Previous me might have scoffed at such a feat, but current me was super proud to be doing it.

And then my kids got sick, one after the other, and I got sick, and it stayed in the single digits here for two weeks and…well, my excuses could go on and on. I haven’t exercised in 10 days. I feel really crappy about it, because I was starting to remember how good it felt to move my body and really test it.

Jen in knee brace with crutches

Jen had to wear support hose after her surgery to ensure proper circulation.

Meanwhile, Jenn Ellefson has hit a bump in her road, too. She got into a skiing accident and had to have major knee surgery. She’s now a few weeks into her physical therapy and has progressed to walking with a cane–a major improvement from the locked out knee brace that had her grocery shopping in a Rascal scooter.

When I first heard about Jen’s injury, I was shocked. Then, I was even more motivated to succeed because here was this woman who inspired me so much, shifting her goals from triathlons to “learning to walk again,” and now she’s already thinking in terms of starting to swim.

She was heavy in my thoughts while I was starting to train. I knew she was working so hard at her physical therapy and I wanted to take advantage of my able body to work hard, too. I kept texting her when I finished a workout or whenever I made it out for a run in the snow.

I stumbled upon a bunch of women like myself who were slowly working to reclaim personal time and space to exercise, women who set goals like the half marathon and found an accountability partner to keep them honest and regular with their workouts. It felt like a movement!

And then I faded out of it.

I want to get back on board. 

Right now, I am 13 weeks away from the half marathon. Well, 12.5 weeks. That’s plenty of time to push hard and get fit. The days are starting to get longer, the sun is rising earlier, and my mom has a few free passes for me to run indoors on the track at the Y.

Even writing this post makes me feel more inspired to get back in the game. I think what I need to do is shift some of my goals a little bit. Sure, I want to be ready for the half marathon. But it’s not always feasible for me to go outside for a run for a half hour. That doesn’t mean I can’t move my body! If I remember that my real goal here is to be a fit person again, to feel good and healthy and strong, then it will feel good to accomplish even an indoor cardio routine that involves marching up and down my stairs with my 32-pound son on my back. Right?

Have you hit any bumps in your road to fitness this winter? Leave us a comment to share your experience.

Leave a Reply

 

 

 

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

CommentLuv badge