Kirk, I'm reading

And I think a few others are too. I'm looking forward to working out in Ptbo, I wonder if I can go to one of Dennis' classes. Damn he was a good cycling instructor.

Now I have to vent. Read this Facebook email exchange between myself and Carl, the Mountain Conditioning instructor.

Carl: Will you be back in class? I'm back Tuesday...Allison will guilt you back.

Me: Probably not, I'm having a hard time getting up for 6 am workouts... 5:30 am in the winter is just cruel. Even with Allison's guilt trips...

Carl: Julio.

Me: I trained pretty hard for 4 months in preparation for the marathon. I still workout 4-5 days a week, just a little later in the morning. It's not the 6 days I used to do and not nearly at the same intensity, but I want a little down time to recover and find inspiration again. Julio isn't impacting my motivation, if anything it's at least getting me out the door to workout these days...


I don't know why I was so irritated by his reply, or why I took such offense to it. The truth is, I'm lacking motivation in more than one area of my life right now. For a couple of years I was go, go, go with work and recently two things have happened:

1. I hired a full time employee who has taken on a lot of what I used to do which frees up a lot of my time.
2. With recent budget cuts, the areas I was going to focus on are no longer funded so I'm struggling to find new and interesting projects.

All of the other parts of my job I've been doing for so long I can do them with my eyes closed. I'm trying to find motivation in different projects. My boss is extremely busy himself and I'm just searching for guidance. I know, woah is me, I should be happy I even have a job in this economy. I just want to have impact in my role, and feel like I'm really contributing. I'm not used to coasting, and steady state is a motto I just hate. I'm trying to find my way back out of that hole.

As for the workouts. I do feel sluggish lately but I think that's a function of not being happy with my job, and the dark, cold, rainy mornings. For F's sake... 4 months of training 6 days/week and a girl can't get away with 4-5 days/week of less intense workouts? No, I'm not working out as hard and yes, I could probably workout harder. But guess what, I'm still feeling like I don't have all of my energy that I had 6 weeks ago and I'm not driven by a major, upcoming race. I've gone through this "slump" before, but back then I would be lucky to get to the gym twice in a week, if I got there at all. Back then I would also eat and drink a lot more, which I'm working really hard at not doing this time around. One more point... even heading in to the marathon I said that the time before November and January 1st I was going to take it easier, and workout without a plan, or mileage in mind. This was the plan all along, what's wrong with that?

I'm not looking for sympathy, or understanding... but I am hoping my friends aren't thinking that my lack of motivation or ability to get to the gym at 5:30 am has something to do with my boyfriend. And really, forgive me for wanting to get an extra 30 minutes or an hour of sleep with him in the morning. It's been three years since I had the kind of intimacy and connection with someone where I could stay up a little later talking, and enjoying their company. This period of our relationship won't last forever, and I'm going to enjoy it for the next couple of months.

I know my friends are supportive and understand what I'm feeling. All of us go through slumps and periods where we're more and less active. I think I just needed to get this all down "on paper" so that I too could look at the issues from all angles.

Sorry for the long post. I had to get it all out.