Bouncing Back

With every new year comes a renewed sense of resolve (at least, for me!). This new year was a little bumpy for me. I had a great holiday break, sans snow and ice, up at my parents in Pennellville. It was a nice week with family, relaxing and working out at the gym. A LOT. (I'm over spin classes now). In fact, I was having such a good time and feeling so good that I took a break from my normal routine upkeep, like cleaning out my sinuses, stretching, core work, etc. The break really was just that...a break from routine.

Turns out, it doesn't work so well when I take a break from the stuff that keeps me in one piece. I did one last long-ish run on the Friday or Saturday before I came back and felt something weird in my left calf. It was reminiscent of the issue I had about two years ago that took two months and lots of time in PT to fix. I wasn't too worried initially, figuring it would just shake out in a day or so, until it was still there three days later. And, to top it off and make life even more fun, I had a sinus infection! That's what I get for not cleaning them out for a week straight.

So far, 2012 was totally sucking. (sorry for the language, but that's the best way to describe it. Total suckage.) I was sick and my legs hurt, I wasn't training and was falling behind on my training schedule, was getting fatter, so overall, I was pretty miserable. Plus, I was back at work and all the stress associated with it. I was stressing about falling behind in my prep for Lake Placid and what impact this little bump in the road would have. I was on such a good trajectory before this; losing weight, being consistent with training...it was an unexpected obstacle I had to deal with, somehow.

I realized about a week into my pity party/freak out that I had two choices for how to deal with this. I could:

1. Put it into perspective of the grand plan, adjust the overall schedule to accommodate for the gap. I could take every day as a new one and do what I could in the moment until I got back to normal.
2. Crawl into a hole, pull up the covers, and not come out until I felt 100%, whatever that means.

In the past, my response to being challenged with a situation like this would have been somewhere in between those two options, but probably weighted more toward option #2. This time, I am very proud to report that I went 100% with option #1. This is what I did:

• I listened to my body and put it into perspective against what I'd be able to derive from the scheduled training session, based on the objectives of the session. Some sessions I canned, some I modified to eliminate all or some of the hard stuff, but I took 'baby steps' to get back to normal. I ended up taking about four days completely off, and then had a modified schedule for the next seven or so. My guiding principal was to listen to my body and do what I could at that given moment.
  
• I modified my overall schedule and repeated a week in the plan, so my out-season plan will extend a week longer than initially planned. This means I don't have any additional slack leading up to race day, but I know where I can cut some scheduled sessions if it comes to that.
• For eating, I tried my best to stay true to Paleo. But, I'll be honest...I didn't make it a lot of times, in particular the evenings when I was so wiped from the day. I gave into my sugar cravings a lot. I understand why this happened and am putting it into perspective. I was sick and tired, so my willpower for starting something new was not strong.
  

I was scheduled to do a race yesterday, the Icicle 10-miler, and I pulled the plug on it. I really wanted to do it, but I know my legs aren't there yet. Running always comes back slowest, particularly with the calf injury. Based on some runs I did this week I know my biomechanics and muscular endurance isn't ready to race. In the past, I would have done the race and suffered the consequences for the next month. I would have prolonged these two weeks of recovery by at least another week, setting back my overall running maybe another one on top of that.

This time, I'm being smart. There are other races, and in fact I've already found one - the Lake Effect Half Marathon in Syracuse at the end of February. It's a flat, fast course, so I'm hoping to PR. It will be a good goal to focus on getting everything in line for: run training, eating, body composition.

I feel really good about where I'm at now. I'm recovered from the sinus infection and back to a normal training schedule. I have a solid short-term goal with the half marathon and an FTP goal with the bike to work towards. I have a freezer full of meat to start Paleo 100% with TODAY. My kitchen has been purged of all non-Paleo foods to eliminate temptation. Life is good.

I wanted to write this blog because it's a really big victory for me. In the past, I would have let something like this (a double whammy of running injury and sinus infection) throw me offline for at least a month. I'm really proud of myself for confronting it and dealing with it appropriately. Yea Jess!

Now, I need to tear myself away from blogging to do what any normal person should do on a day off when it's 20 degrees outside: hit the pool for a workout at an inappropriate hour of the morning.