My Journey With Health And Fitness – Working Hard Will Get Me There

I am at day 13th of Dry February (remember I actually started on Jan 30th) and quite frankly it is going better than I expected. After nearly 2 weeks I am seeing the positive outcomes of not consuming alcohol. I am actually sleeping better (4 days this week with my sleep score in the ‘good’ range) and my resting heart rate has dropped. Most impressive is my blood pressure which has been in the normal range for a couple years now but today it read 96/74 which I am really happy with. Ok, some of this might also be from the training I have been doing for the last 3 weeks but I think going dry has also helped. I should note that for Superbowl tomorrow I have found various no sugar, low calorie non-alcoholic beers including a stout that I tried out yesterday and absolutely loved.

Out of the last 14 days I have managed to do at least 20k steps 12 days (Mon-Sat). Ok, I admit I am counting today because I know if I am short steps after my after lunch walk that I will simply do a quick walk on the treadmill after dinner. I am really dedicated right now to getting myself back to peak form. Yes, I know it has only been 2 weeks but I am back to having the determination that I did 2 years ago when I started training. I also concede to the fact that I am feeling better than I have in months. That tells me that I need to turn my mind back to the fact that I need to keep doing this for as long as I am able to.

But I am working hard right now without overdoing it. I make sure that my training is only 3 days a week and not every day. Days I am not training I get in 2 5km walks (oh, and of course my walk with Keeva for Elder Dogs). As well I am keeping up with my strength training at least 5 days a week. Because I am training pretty hard I have had to go back to doing mantras in my head. I find that the first 1/3 of my intervals are the hardest and I need to talk myself through it to keep myself from backing off. My latest mantra is ‘working hard will get me there’ and it seems to be working. The middle 1/3 of the workout for some reason is the easiest I guess because by then it is like I have passed the point of no return. The last 1/3 of the workout is when I am just determined to finish and regardless of how much I am sweating or how much my body is starting to complain I know at that point I can do it. I just keep repeating that mantra in my head which just seems to encourage me.

The bottom line is I am really starting to feel good and am already getting to that impatient point where I really want to ramp things up. Instead, I will increase my intervals each week until I know I am ready to start doing full runs again. Once I get back to that I plan on never letting that endurance ability slip again. Here’s to having my journey back on track.