Overcoming Disappointment

Today I'm down to 156.8lbs. You'd think my 3+lb weightloss this week would excite me, and it is exciting, but it's also going a bit too fast and I worry some of it might have been muscle loss. There's really no way to know other than sticking to my workout plan and making sure I fuel my body enough...especially given the upcoming Olympic distance triathlon next Saturday!

1500 meter (0.9 mile) swim, 24 mile bike and 10K (6.2mile) run. I thought I was ready for it, but my training today has left me disappointed...

We did a 1hr25min bike followed by a 45min run and I burned out in the first 30 min of the ride and never recovered, running my slowest pace in over 3 months.

Was it the 3 hills we climbed right at the start of the bike? Was it the 90 degree weather? Was it the alcohol I had last night? Was it improper fueling? Or is it my fast weight(/muscle) loss?

I won't ever know the answer and most likely it was a combination of those things. What I do know is that the mental game I played with myself today was exhausting. I reached that burn out point and started the epic battle of "I got this" and "no, you don't."

Overcoming your own demons is the hardest battle in endurance athletics...and in weight loss. This stuff is HARD and when things get hard your brain is good at making excuses. When faced with disappointed your brain is good at telling you, "see, I told you you couldn't do it."

So today's lesson is one of overcoming disappointed. Convincing yourself that one bad day doesn't have to mean you failed. That one bad day doesn't warrant quitting. It should actually inspire you to push harder and keep going.

Today I am stronger than I was yesterday.
Tomorrow I WILL be stronger than I am today.

The mental game

While the highlight of my week might be that I have stayed below 160 lbs all week, the highlight of the day is most definitely my Ladies' Choice Sprint Triathlon time. Remember I set a goal of just under an hour?

Well....(drum roll, please)....I did it in 58:52 and most impressively was that I ran the 2 mile run at a 9:00 min mile pace! I'm not a 9 min mile runner especially not after a 400 yard swim and an 8 mile bike ride! Just a few months ago when I started running again I was running 2 miles at barely an 11 min mile and that was on fresh legs! Now many of my training runs are below that and I'm setting my new goal to a 10 min mile and wondering, could it one day be a 9?

If you're not into racing, you might not understand my excitement or constant goal setting. But here's the secret straight from the mouth of a behavior analyst: in order to get to where I want to go, I'm going to have to work hard and in order to work hard, I'm going to need to be motivated. Racing myself IS my motivation (although high-fives and cheers from spectators are pretty awesome too). Meeting personal goals and recognizing that you are stronger than you thought, is a huge motivator and aiming for that elusive Ironman is the biggest motivator I could have.

This race actually awakened something in me that I have never felt before. I've always known I was stronger than I thought and that I could push myself further than I expected, but part of me always disagreed, part of me always whispered you have limits.

As I fought with crazy winds that made my bike move sideways while going up a hill and pushed myself to sprint to the finish so I could beat my goal, I broke free from that part of me that I feel has been holding me back for months. Working out, losing weight, living life...it's partly physical, but it's also very much a mental game.

Today I feel like I have broken down some of the self-defeating words my mind feeds itself.

Yeah, I have physical limits, but today I realized my mind had set those limits way too low. Today, I stepped away from the notion that I could never be a sub-10 min mile runner, that I could never place during a race (I placed 4th in my age group!), that I could never weigh 140 lbs or have a rock-solid body. Today I felt confident that I COULD become that person, that I could complete in an ironman AND, more importantly, look like one.

An ironman might not be your dream, but we could all benefit from a battle with our own demons and trust me, you are way stronger than they are!