“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”

Last night I started to get sick again…  Not as back as last time with shaking chills and the whole nine yards, but I can’t seem to keep much in my system. It’s been great in terms of weight loss for Fit Challenge; however, I was not really aiming to lose any weight and this wouldn’t be my preferred method of going about it.  

Speaking of which, Adam and I both had weigh ins again and I am holding steady at exactly 139.2 (for two weeks now- the difference between last week and the week before being that I didn’t work out before hand so I probably weigh even less).  Adam is still under 200. Our challenge was to hold a wall sit for a cumulative time of 15 minutes with two attempts per day (just like the plank challenge).  It took us three days, but we completed the challenge without any issue… per usual.

However, feeling less than stellar and not being able to tolerate much in the way of food has really been hampering my workouts in general recently.  The other day I tried to run, but after 2 miles I was feeling sick and called it quits.  I did still manage to run 15 miles total for the week and got in a over a mile of swimming before the dreaded illness set in.  As far as cycling, I missed spinning on Saturday because the hubs realized when we got there that he forgot his shorts, so those miles were a fail.  In his defense, he did offer to wait for me while I went to class without him, but I didn’t think it’d be particularly fair or fun to go without him.

We also did two workouts with the trainer, and one was pull ups, chin ups, and close grip pull ups (can you picture me brimming with glee as you read this? If not, you don’t read this blog regularly enough… ) with rows, lat pull downs, and back extensions in between.  We used the bands as an assist, which made me feel totally badass (in spite of feeling crummy)… especially now that I only need the green one to do 10 in a row! 🙂  Pull ups, I will OWN you this year!

As far as still being sick, all I can think is it’s a combination of things: being run down from swapping back and forth between regular and night shifts, the stress of being promoted to manager, the dog drama and having to re-home Ellie, my parents having to sell their house and move… the list goes on and on.  Taking all that into consideration, I guess I am actually doing pretty well. 😉

So given all of that and the fact that I was feeling like garbage again this morning, I came home from my session with the trainer and signed up for another 50K trail ultra in April.  Why?  Well first, who wouldn’t be inspired to go run 30+ miles on brutal trails when they have these kinds of inspirational posters?  Second, I feel like I’ve plateaued and finishing another ultra will help me get back on track to feeling accomplished again.  

Furthermore, my race goals for this year all involved triathlon, but if there’s a chance I may be pregnant it makes it hard to register.  I am not stable on my bike, so that is the one thing I do not want to be doing in a race while pregnant.  The ultra, on the other hand, I think I could handle.  Especially since it’s not that far away and it’s a loop course so I’d have plenty of opportunity to drop out if I needed to for any reason.  Finally, I have already done one, so I know I can do it.  Plus, I have been training consistently since the last one.  If anything, I’m in better shape now.

I suppose that is all my big news for today: still sick and signed up for another ultra…  Totally seems like those two should go hand in hand.  As far as the mystery illness, I am just going to have to find ways to try and relax without exerting myself too much… like blogging and plotting Thriver World Domination. 😉  To me, it’s just another obstacle to work through, and it may be that I just need to start incorporating low intensity weeks into my training schedule.  For now, I’m doing my best to chill out and not worry about it.  After all, I think I have enough on my plate. 

#thriveon