Well, it didn’t take long for this to become a literal challenge! On Friday I couldn’t for the life of me find the motivation to exercise, so I called for backup. JK agreed to a quick run in the Redmond Watershed Preserve after work…but when we got there, I could barely find the energy to walk, let alone run. At least I got to use JK as my personal therapist to let off some steam about how crappy I was feeling (words flow freely when you’re walking in nature) and that I felt guilty for not doing something more challenging for GOYA.
JK’s words of wisdom for the day: “Focus on what you are doing, not on what you think you should be doing”. (Yes, everything I need to learn about life always essentially boils down to “Be here now”.) I decided to try to take his advice, and suddenly I was able to run again and get lost in conversation.
Side note: we saw two piles of bear scat in the Watershed. It still amazes me that there are bears and cougars running around here.
I kept that mindset going throughout the weekend when we both realized that we just didn’t feel like hiking. Instead of feeling guilty about not being out in the mountains on a weekend in September (the best hiking month in Washington), we made some good food and enjoyed curling up at home with our books. This also gave me a chance to come up with some good cross-training activities since I’m trying to ease back into running.
First up, yoga. Omgz, GOYA is an anagram of yoga – surely that must be a sign! JK and I both used to love Ashtanga Yoga, but we just stopped practicing after we left California. Dusting off my mat felt amazing, and I can’t even remember the last time I was this sore. Since I was already feeling all New Age and junk, I tortured myself for fifteen minutes on my Shakti Mat to really get the blood flowing.
Sunday was a day of epic laziness, but we took our bikes out for a ride on the East Lake Sammamish Trail and stopped by Marymoor Park on the way home so JK could boulder for a bit. We only biked 16 miles since my butt hasn’t touched a bike seat since the dawn of time (between that and the Ashtanga, tomorrow should be a hoot), so I felt like I didn’t get a good workout in. It would help if there were more hills; all the elevation gain is from the one evil monster of a hill that leads back up to our house. Now that part just about killed me.
I’ve come to the conclusion that if this project is going to work, I need to push myself harder (bigger rush of endorphins and sense of accomplishment) and do so earlier in the day (so I can really benefit from the rush).
