There is no one tougher than me than myself and it's a been a life-long battle to right my own ship and sometimes to my own detriment.
Nowadays, it's not so bad and I believe that it's much healthier in terms of remaining hungry to succeed and at a minimum is to be better than before with maximum effort.
The hardest part of all of the above is accepting the setbacks and pocketing them as valuable lessons for future attempts towards success.
This goes for anything and everything I've been doing the last few years. Early on, I had too much bad habits and relied on numbing myself to know what was a loss or a win and probably cared very little; as long as I was selfishly enjoying myself.
The last few years has been more about taking care of my self through removing certain things from my diet, exercising and remaining mentally strong through all challenges that was set upon me.
Needless to say, the pandemic was a challenge no one saw coming.
Pre-pandemic, I was in a great zone with my workouts. I was doing what I do now, but felt faster and stronger. My endurance was way beyond anything I've ever experienced in my lifetime and even through the toughest challenges I endured physically, I was crushing it - day in an day out.
I mean, High Intensity Interval Training was something; I would have never considered at an earlier age and if I did - oh my. Who knows how many and more extreme challenges I would have taken on.
When I began, my quest to lose weight, improve my posture, have a better physique overall; HIIT became my go to and I've been doing it for over 8 years now. I started briefly going to Planet Fitness and got bored of it rather quickly and remembered, why I wasn't enamored with gyms in the first place.
A fitness studio, with a coach managing the group of people through a different template where you don't have to wait for someone to finish at a particular workout station, rower or treadmill was right up my alley and why I love where I go and continue to go.
Right up to the time COVID became rampant and shut shit down and folks were just scrambling for some normalcy, my fiancé Tiffany and I made it a priority to continue our fitness efforts and started doing the workouts at home and running outside to stay in shape. We actually did an amazing job.
This month a year ago we caught COVID and Tiffany and I continue to struggle, her more than me and although we continue our workouts and participating in running events; we pay a price after each intense activity.
Add some injuries that was a lot more troublesome than the usual injuries we push through and it's been a battle of long-term COVID since that horrendous ordeal a year ago.
This post is definitely not about that shit show, but more about the road to getting back to what we had accomplished physically up to that point. For the past year, it's more of getting through a workout or a running event and hoping we don't keel over in the process.
Case in point, Tiffany did amazing on Saturday. She got through the 10K in a lot shorter time than she had predicted; but paid the price. She has felt like crap since Saturday.
I am ahead of the game in my recovery, because I've been able to get through the mental part of it much easier than Tiffa. I don't pressure her and I don't make her feel bad about it. I'm giving her all the time she needs. I'm just happy that she at least tries. I mean she got up this morning with every intention to go workout and then told me just go ahead without her. I did. I understand. She is a champ no matter what.
Well, on days like today; I can write a post based on an eventful benchmark day and today was that day.
Today's benchmark was the 2000 meter row for time and my personal record is my current unicorn. I have not been able to match or beat my PR that I set in July of 2020 and it is driving me nuts.
Yet again, I did not match or beat it today and I was crushed to say the least. Only because, I seem to get further away from some of these benchmarks instead of getting closer.
But, if I made the leader board it will soften the blow. I'll find out sometime this week. That usually helps with my ego. Honestly, I don’t believe I qualified.
I'll post more about today's benchmark and workout as I usually do on my @actifit post later on.
I have to find a silver lining, because it's who I am. I try to remain positive through all adversity.
You see, my late mother caught cancer at 52 years old and fought it for 10 years before she passed away. What I saw her go through and her will to fight and stay alive for her family, was incredible to witness. She is and forever will be my hero and the reason, I take care of myself and work hard to be as healthy as possible. so that I honor her and NOT disrespect my body.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining and I still consider myself blessed to be able to still get up in the morning and go crush a workout and although I may have lost a step or two - my heart, mind and soul is still all in.
ALIVE and THRIVING
I AM ALIVE
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