I am super fired up!! The second book I’ve already read this year, Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing was a great refresher on things we already practice in our lives, and I’m all sorts of inspired!! I am ready to commit to myself again, with regards to my health and fitness.
So a few things… First, my mom passed away in November 2019 from a rare form of cancer. It was a huge shocker and I’ll go into it another time. Nothing ever prepares you for cancer. Death. Funerals. Writing or delivering a eulogy. But life slowed down and then went on a full pause for a while. And I think I can say it’s time to hit play again!
I finally started exercising again a few days ago. That was tough. But I have an Ironman to train for. A half marathon to crush. I was cruising on excuses for quite some time. Then I thought I would exercise on vacation because we were going away. We were going to have a change of scenery. Because the hotel we were staying at had Peloton bikes, and I could do my 75th ride on it. But then I caught a horrible cold the second day of our vacation, and I went into the new year not having done anything.
I know I was using excuses for a while like I was sad. Or I didn’t feel like it. And then it just got too easy to keep riding those excuses. And every time we fall off the fitness wagon, it’s always such a pain to get back on and takes longer to get back to the same intensity. That was always in the back of my head. And every time Justin and I swear to each other we wouldn’t take so long of a break. That we wouldn’t fall off the wagon again. So I knew I had to get my butt back in the saddle. Literally and figuratively. I hadn’t opened my TrainingPeaks app in months (to keep track of my training and fitness gains) because I couldn’t bear to see my fitness levels gradually decline into nothingness.
I did a Peloton ride with Robin Arzon, just 30 minutes, for my first ride back after my mom’s death, and it was my 75th ride. I love her, and I wanted a challenging and motivating class. It’s a milestone badge, and you know I love streaks and streaking. The first few minutes were hard, not physically, but emotionally. I had a flood of thoughts. Like, how could I just carry on? How am I allowed to get back to things I want to do, and like to do, and just do things? Shouldn’t I continue to be sad, should I still be mourning … how can I be so lucky to be alive and working out, and someone is just GONE? It’s hard to describe exactly my thought process, but I got emotional and teary and tried not to sob while pedaling. But then Robin said something along the lines of turning pain into power. And it really, really resonated with me. I decided then and there that I would buck up. Suck it up. And I gave myself permission to keep moving forward and onward.
My second Peloton ride back was fine. It was another 30-minute ride with some epic climbing segments. Then I did a 30-minute ride the next day and tried out the Sundays with Love series. Justin had nice things to say about it, and I felt like getting some loving vibes from Ally Love. And OH MY. It was more than I bargained for. The theme of the class was “commitment”, and it shook me to the core. She talked about leading with commitment, and not with interest. And how commitment is larger than ourselves. When we make a commitment, especially a commitment to ourselves, you will continue to work away at it, no matter how hard it gets.
Of course, I got emotional at the beginning of the class again. At this rate, it’s like 1 in every 2 classes I cry a little. But the class really resonated with me. I had made a commitment to myself, and at the rate I was going, my goals were slipping away from me. It might be a little dramatic, but I have an idea of the work it takes to get me to where I want to be, and I just didn’t want to keep slipping until things were too far out of reach and I would have to reset or recalibrate. I know, I need to be kind to myself, and I know that I am still grieving and still working through the emotions of losing my mom. But I needed to reaffirm the commitments I made to myself, and that it was OK to move forward after the loss of my mom.
This post is now completely in some other direction than I had originally intended. But I like it. It’s documenting my journey back to being “on” again/ On reflection, I don’t know if I got a little scared as well, because I was having a conversation with someone earlier this week, and they were talking about having a good base and getting time on the bike for Ironman training. I know they meant well, but it put the fear in me a little that I was falling behind.
Anyway, I’m super fired up now about getting back into building my fitness and training for all the goals I have this year! I’ll have to write another post about the things I read about and what I’m going to start doing for 2020!!
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