Finally :-)

Today was the day! I went out and did my first workout in 17 days. Yesterday I was already not feeling sick anymore and I decided that I would pick up my routine again today. This morning I got up and although it is a cold day, it is beautiful blue-skies fall day and I just had to go for a run. Since I didn't know how I would feel and how it would go, I just laced up my shoes with no real intentions for this run. I just wanted to get going and see what it feels like. I went down to the river, started to jog and thoroughly enjoyed being out and about. My breathing was good, no chest pain, no coughing and lots of sun and colored leaves. I decided to run a loop, crossing the river over one bridge and returning on another. That course is between 6 and 7 km long and I wasn't really going to check on my pace or anything. I felt so good that I was really surprised to see my heartrate when I checked it after I ran up the ramp to the bridge. The watch displayed a shockingly high 188 bpm! I don't think I have ever seen my heartrate go that high. And because I felt so good about my run I would have never guessed that it would be that high. I continued to go slower to reach an acceptable heartrate-level but it only went down to about 170 bpm which is still higher than normal for me. It took me 45 minutes to finish the run and I am happy that I went. I know that being sick can affect your heartrate and I will have to monitor it as I go on with my workouts. I wonder how long it will be until it really goes back to an acceptable range. The plan is to return to my usual 6 days of running, swimming and biking this week and I feel confident that I can pick up pretty much where I left two weeks ago. I might have to go a little slower and I am not going to push really hard but I am definitely ready to get going!

Day 9

Nine consecutive days of not exercising... And no end of this in sight. In fact I just had to cancel our swim training for Sunday morning. This is getting old! On the up side: The scale told me this morning that I have lost weight. The pounds must have found an exit strategy through my nose, I suppose. And it's official: The "Mixed Double" or "Gemischtes Doppel" is signed up for the relay marathon in Duesseldorf, Germany in 2012. The bill just got here this morning, so at least that is taken care of. Can't wait to get my shoes on and going again. The weather is pretty nice and warm for this time of the year as well. It's probably going to be raining and freezing when I am ready to tri ;-) again... Any good tips on fighting a head cold anybody??

My company these days

What I Like about Working Out

I still don't feel better since posting this- in fact I am not at work but sitting on the sofa waiting for my doctor's appointment. Needless to say I haven't been working out and am not sure when I will be able to pick up my routine again. In light of my last post where I said that I get annoyed when I can't exercise, I did some thinking and tried to figure out what exactly it is that gets me so upset. When I am fit it's not always with pure pleasure that I am looking forward to my daily workouts. I usually exercise in the afternoon or the early evening and some days I really struggle to convince myself that it is necessary for me to get up and going. When I come home from work I am hungry and sometimes tired, I see piles of laundry laying around and there's 10.000 reasons why I should not be working out. Still, that never stops me from picking up my bike or lacing on my shoes and I always do my workouts as planned. My mood and attitude towards my designated workout of the day shifts completely the second that I start it. There's no more sofa to sit on and the laundry has long been forgotten. I focus on myself, my body, my thoughts and my goals and I actually can let go and relax. When exercising I am truly with myself and all the other worries and struggles of the day are pushed aside for a little while. Especially when running I am able to let my thoughts wander and I have oftentimes been able to come up with solutions to problems or answers to questions that concerned me. In a way, my workouts are very luxurious "me times" that I have been fitting into every single day lately and I have been benefitting from them in all aspects of my life outside of fitness as well. I am definitely overall less stressed and don't let problems at work or in other relationships get at me so much. It is almost as if I am not only physically strengthening my body but my mind as well. On top of that, at the end of every workout there's a feeling of achievement that is very enjoyable. There's so many things all of us have to do every day that they don't stand out anymore. We all have to work, we all have to pay our bills, we all have to take care of a million things but at the end of the day we don't say to ourselves: "Well done! Great job taking out the trash!" At the end of my exercises I usually do that, though. I feel that I have achieved something. Even though it's not measurable, it is special to me that I have gone through the effort of doing this particular workout. That's why I miss working out and I hope that this doctor will fix my cold so that I can continue my program very soon.

Workout Schedule vs. Reality

Since my first triathlon is not going to be until next July I am currently not under any pressure to get my workouts in as planned. However, I am somewhat ambitious and tend to get annoyed if I don't manage to check off all the routines I have sketched out. Right now I follow a 3-month program designed to get the athlete to cover a sprint distance triathlon when finished. But when I started into the second month of this plan I got sick and had to pause for a couple of days. Things like this happen and I wasn't too worried about it. Today is the last day of a long holiday weekend and once again, I haven't worked out in 4 days because I am feeling sick. It is really hard to make the decision to stay at home for me right now, although I know it's much better to give the body a break and be completely fit before resuming the workouts. I feel so lazy and when I see people jogging, it drives me nuts. I guess it's a good thing that I want to be active and exercising but it's stupid that I can't let go and just relax while sipping at my tea. A year ago I would have never thought that I would feel this way about a few days of not working out but obviously this has changed. Originally I was going to start doing stuff again tomorrow but I think I am going to have to see how I feel and maybe still have to put it off. I just need to wrap my head around the fact that I am not losing out but that I am giving myself enough time to recover fully to be able to put all my energy back into the training.