Comparison Pic

Two Apple related things events (me trying to find my Ipod charger and in the process finding an old photo disk and me messing around with a new photo collage ap on my phone) culminated in the pic below of me before my journey (left) and the current me (right):



It's good to look back (especially when you're feeling frustrated) to see how far you've come.   It will some times blow your mind and very often put the wind in your sails for the continued journey.  :) 

The Finish Line Awaits

Some dreams stay with you forever 
Drag you round and bring you back to where you were
Some dreams keep on getting better 
Gotta keep believing if you wanna know for sure
...Keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart.
~ Eli Young Band

When you've been at this a while, inevitably there are times when you don't have your mojo.  We all have days when we're not at our most motivated, but what happens when the new wears off, when things become old hat, when it seems like the road reaches outwards towards infinity and what you're working towards seems less like working towards your goal/dream, and more like just plain work.   Have you been there?  Do you feel like you're there now?

Don't feel guilty or let panic overtake you if you find yourself in this situation.   It doesn't mean you don't want your dream as much as you once did, or that you are doomed to be a failure.  This is just the inevitable thing that happens to even them most dedicated of us humans.  We take our eye off the prize sometimes when we are on an extended journey.  We forget about our desire for our destination and throw all our concentration on the every day mechanics of getting there, to the point where we resent the steps we must take and begin to doubt the confident stride that got us this far down the road to begin with.

One of my awesome workout buddies, Stephanie, was did the half-marathon portion of this past weekend's Beach2Battleship Triathalon.  She had not previously run 13.1 miles and was a little nervous.  Those of us who workout with her had no doubts whatsoever that she could do it; Steph is one of those people who inspire me to push harder in hopes of being in her kind of shape one day.

Saturday I was doing my usual volunteer work at the aid station, handing out water, etc to the athletes as they ran by, and I was anxiously looking for Steph,. My voice was hoarse from a recent bad cold (imagine Darth Vadar meets the Godfather), but as soon as I saw her round the corner and come running towards me, I yelled for all I was worth and jumped up and down.  She high-fived me as she ran by and told me later that around mile 11 of the 13.1, she felt like there was no way she was going to be able to finish. She had lost sight of the fact that she had just run the majority of the race (something that a lot of people can't imagine doing ever in their lives), and was doubting that she could finish the remaining two.  She then told me that when she heard me screaming for her and saw me jumping up and down, it spurred her on to finish her first half-marathon.   

Do my cheers have supernatural powers?  Nope (sadly).  Steph had the ability within herself the whole time to get to the finish line, she'd just gotten weary of the road under her feet.  Boy can I identify with that!  I am so guilty of forgetting the awesomeness of achieving my goal and instead letting the mechanics of getting there make me weary.  

I say to you as I say to myself: pull that dream back to the forefront of your mind.  Meditate and marinade on it until the desire for that dream outweighs the weariness, temptation, and self-doubt that clouded that dream in the first place. The finish line awaits.

Wanna Be Starting Something?

Sometimes all you need to put the fire back into your workout is a change in music. You can tell when you've listened to the same workout mix too many times when you're in the middle of your regular life outside the gym and when Pitbull comes on you've suddenly dropped down into burpees.  Then everyone's looking at you like you're crazy.  And then you really feel bad about yourself because you're the lunatic doing burpees voluntarily.  But I digress...let's just say that some new tunes were needed.

My awesome friend Regina not only provided us with the workout template that is now named after her (10 stations with one minute of an exercise, one minute of cardio, 10 push ups and 10 sit-ups at each station) but she also brought with her the Ipod speaker and the 80's cardio mix on Pandora.

The musical flashback was fun and distracting, whether using the cardio portion of a round to recreate Jennifer Beal's famous Flashdance moves (She's a maniac, mayyyyyyyyniac) or putting a little more funk into our curl presses with the King of Pop (ya wanna be startin' somethin').  And aren't those lyrics reflective of the frustration of the inevitable plateau (too high to get over, to low to get under....yeah yeah)?

In tunes, as in workouts, variety is the spark that will re-fuel your fire.   But be warned: new tunes spurs you on to push harder.  And a harder push leaves you Hungry Like A Wolf.