This idea was inspired by a dear friend who is writing a witty, insightful, inspirational blog about getting her body back after having two kids. Originally, I started with the idea of accomplishing a press-handstand in 365 days. However, it's turned into so much more than that. It's really about my journey back from chronic fatigue syndrome, regaining strength and flexibility that I once had as a gymnast, and my journey back to ironman fitness (and more importantly, the life lessons I'm learning along the way).

Thursday, January 16, 2014

10/3/13-10/12/13: Days 96-105

Holy cow – passed the 100 mark! Kinda scary.
Well, I can say that I’ve successfully stuck to my plank a day challenge. Yep, so far that’s 12 more planks than I did last month. And most of them are short (30-45 seconds each), but sometimes I do more than one (or do additional core work), and it’s better than nothing.
Also, I rode my bike today. I love to ride my bike, but today was humbling. I rode with a group that I used to ride with a couple years ago and we did a relatively easy route (about 30 miles with some mild climbing). I used to hang at the front of the group, but today I hung at the back (by myself) and it was hard. My heart rate shot up into the 180’s pretty quickly and I was huffing and puffing to climb some mild “hills.” I’m supposed to keep my heart rate down (like below 150), so I didn’t do so well in that department. I learned that I definitely need to choose some flatter routes for right now. But, at least I was back out on my bike. I think this contributes to my press handstand because I’m building overall fitness. It all adds up, right?
And it also ties in because what I secretly keep thinking about in the back of my mind is that this is sort of a countdown to my ironman. I feel like I’m going from zero to ironman in less than a year. And that really freaked me out today. As I was riding, I started thinking to myself, “How in the world am I going to do an Ironman in August if I can barely survive this easy 30 mile ride!?” And then I quickly remembered one of my ironman lessons: think about what you are doing while you are doing it. It does me absolutely no good to freak out about ironman 10 months from now while I’m on a bike ride today. Instead, I chose to focus on the moment and remind myself that at least I was back on my bike (instead of lying in my bed). And this is where I am, this is my starting point.

I recently read an article on over training syndrome and I can’t help but think that this has played a factor in my illness. One thing that the article said was that you have to have faith. Faith that sometimes not running is better than running (it was about over-trained ultra runners), and that you will come back stronger another day. So I choose to have faith: faith that resting and healing for four months was better than training and racing this season(not that my body gave me much of a choice on this one-but it seems that that’s part of my lesson here), faith that I will come back stronger. Faith that this big rest has better trained my body for something bigger and better down the road.  Faith that perhaps ironman training started back in May when my body began to fail me and decided that it was time to redirect course. Faith that I will regain my fitness.

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