I Flipped the Switch

A friend of mine has grabbed hold of the reigns for her own fitness journey and has enrolled in bootcamp.  I did a few classes of fitness bootcamp and I remember how hard it was and how sore I was for days afterwards.  Good for her for going for it though.  I hope she can keep up the intensity for the whole month because it certainly was not the right fitness match for me at this point.  I was never bored and I learned a lot of cool new exercises, but I did not feel like I was successful at it so I dropped out quickly.

This brought on a conversation with my husband where we talked about fitness mindset.  He has always had a competitive nature so when he sets out to do something he intends to win, to do better than last time, or to one up the guy next to him.  My mindset has always been that I hope I survive it, just finish it, or try most of the activity.  We are in two different worlds in terms of fitness and Chris has been patiently waiting for me to cross over to his side of things.

The more we talked about it the more I realized that I have in fact flipped the switch and started on a new fitness journey.  I am no longer in the mindset of my friend (if I'm tired and sore I'll go and just give it 80% - which is still totally awesome because it is better than nothing and we all have those days), but am instead inching my way towards Chris' mindset.  When I swim now I try and do better.  I no longer go to just put in my 20 minutes of time.  I try to swim more laps or faster laps or run farther for longer.  I am not just going through the motions like before when I increased my ability because my fitness sheet indicated it was time to do so.  I increase my ability because I desire to increase it and my body feels the need to go above and beyond.

I still have those moments of relapse though.  For example, yesterday Chris came home for lunch and we talked about my fitness plan for the day.  he planned to run after work so I decided to run at the same time instead of going all the way into town to swim.  By the time he got home I had forgotten completely about this plan.  However, when he asked if I was going to be ready to run in a few minutes I didn't try and come up with an excuse not to go I just got up, got ready, and left to run.  Even the cold weather and my missing running jacket did not disrupt my plan to run.  I simply went with the idea that if I ran lots I wouldn't be cold. I ran one full minute before I had to stop cold in my tracks because my foot was so sore (plantar fasciitis) that I had to limp back towards home.  I felt defeated because I wanted to run.  I was confused because I ran/walked in sprints on the treadmill for 15 minutes a few days before no problem.  I decided that it must be my expensive running shoes that are the problem so I laced up my cheap Walmart sneakers and hit the road running.  It was much better.  I did my full mile at my usual pace and worked up quite a sweat.  If this had happened a few weeks ago I would have either a) not gone out on the run and made an excuse or b) returned from my 1 minute run and then used my foot as an excuse to not continue and take a few days off.  The flip has been switched!