Winter Workouts

My workouts at the beginning of this month:

• Shoveling snow;
• Pushing / pulling / dragging Goo in the stroller over unshoveled sidewalks;
• Wrestling Goo into his snowsuit and boots;
• Shivering on the train platform.

What have I not been able to make myself do on a regular basis? Get up early and do my strength training and boxing in the basement. Baby, it's cold down there!

The two weeks both before and after Christmas - so four weeks total - were not good ones for me physically. Stress and upset routines led to poor eating and minimal physical activity. By the time I returned to work I felt as if I was just returning from a long illness. And then the extreme cold last week and its impact on our schedules (school closings) kept me from picking up my workouts again, either boxing or running. At the beginning of this week I felt as if I was going to have to come back slowly and carefully if I wanted to avoid getting injured.

Which, as it turns out, is a good thing, as I've been neglecting a few things in my life and need to make time for them. It's a lot easier to fit in other things if I'm starting my workouts from zero! Much harder to be going full-pace the way I was (and loved doing) and then have to "give up" some of that.

That said, I do want to build my strength-training and boxing back up (I plan to cut back on running), and that will be hard since I don't have any external motivators for those right now. But that's about where I was last summer when I stopped taking classes, so I can look at my training logs to see how I did it then. But the real challenge is in finding ways to get myself out of bed in the morning and then downstairs. I'll figure it out, though. Slow and steady... slow and steady.

Grateful for warmer weather,
Annie