“Adversity causes some men to break and others to break records.”

-William Ward

No one likes facing adversity, but it’s an unfortunately necessary evil.  Adversity is what lets us know just how badly we want (or don’t want) our goals.  No one ever overcomes a great obstacle to victory and says “wow, I wish I had just coasted here instead”.  Why? Because ADVERSITY BUILDS CHARACTER.  It strengthens the mind the way physical demands create a stronger body.  It turns a simple goal into a journey– and journeys are what make up our lives.

That being said, I am still not happy about being sidelined by this shoulder injury!  lol  However, it has given me a chance to reevaluate a few things.  1) I don’t see the purpose in killing myself trying to get in as many Insanity workouts as possible in a week.  That stuff is rough on my joints and would serve me better on cross training days to mix things up.  I have too many other types of workouts going on to try get in their scheduled 6 sessions a week. 2)  I want to going climbing more frequently.  It’s a challenging workout both mentally and physically; and I have really fallen back in love with it over the past few months. Not being able to go has made me realize just how much I miss it.  3) As much as I LOVE boot camp, I seriously need to cut myself some slack when I can’t make it there.  I have a tendency to feel bad when our instructor yells at people for not showing up regularly- but most of them are not pulling multiple sessions a day and working 13+ hr shifts.  Plus, I know he’s not directing it at me personally and knows I make it when I can (AND I still busting my ass even if I’m not there.)

As you may have guessed, with all my downtime I have had LOTS of time to think.  What is ultimately all comes down to is this is my body and my training, so I need to do what works best for me.  Instead of trying to do it everyone else’s way (frequently at the say time) I am going to work on figuring out what is going to get me closest to achieving my goals.  Right now, those goals include Pike’s Peak and the Ultra Beast.  That means lots of running!  However, it also means conditioning myself to function when I’m fatigued and deprived of oxygen, AND building strength and endurance to conquer those obstacles.

Right now, I am pretty limited; but I have been making the most of what I CAN do!  Sunday I went for a long run on the trails and did LOTS of hills.  Initially I had planned on an easy 6, but felt so great I just kept going.  I probably knocked out close to 10 miles in total. IT FELT AMAZING!   I think it was exactly what I needed! (the mental “control-alt-delete” ) I didn’t want to stop, but I was afraid my IPhone would get wet when it started raining hard.  My shoulder held up fine, and the chiropractor said it was okay to keep it up as long as my shoulder wasn’t getting aggravated.  My calves, on the other hand, have been SCREAMING in rebellion.  I’m sure it was thanks to the vibrams, but I’ll happily take it.  I will gladly go down stairs backwards if it means getting to blow off some steam! Plus it’s kind of a relief to have some “normal” muscle soreness for a change.

In order to give my legs a rest from running, yesterday I continued my habit of pedaling like a demon and knocked out 28 miles on the bike.   Today  it was another 16- plus 10 min on the stair climber and a half mile around the parking lot just to loosen things up (it was my “light day”).  The more I pound out miles on the bike, the more resolute I become that I will do Ironman.  It may not happen in the next year, but my mind is made up.  I can see it. I believe it. I can become it. Consider me a woman on a mission! No little bump in the road is going to derail this train. 🙂

I have mountains to climb!

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