First week back...

So far this first week back to working out after the 2 week hiatus has left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it feels great to be exercising again. Especially after a lazy Christmas/New Years where I spent a ton of time sitting, eating and knitting and very little time moving at all, getting my heart rate up and working my muscles is a welcome change. However, the drawback to this time off is how difficult these base building workouts have become. We did stairs at run clinic (RC) on Tuesday night. We had to do 20 minutes of hard up, moderate up, which is obviously not an easy workout for anyone. However, I was disappointed that for the last 3, I was barely able to walk up the last few levels. And to make it worse, even the 'cool down' 10 minute jog felt hard, which I have not experienced at RC ever.

The next morning I went to my first computrainer bike session. I had never done this before: you bring your very own bike (I bet it was very happy to be used after a 4 month hiatus where it was moved only from corner to corner in my apartment!) which gets hooked up to some computer systems that adjust resistance according to some program of hills and your body weight. It adds resistance as appropriate and is designed to simulate real life riding. Needless to say, after not having biked at all for a few weeks, let alone used my own bike with changing gears, it was quite difficult as well. I plugged through the 45 minutes, but barely survived. My legs felt like jello, and despite how hard I tried, I couldn't catch up to the other bikers (your relative position based on how fast you are completing the mileage appears on the computer screen projected at the front of the room). While it felt good to be pushing myself, I still can't help being disappointed with my performance and how my muscles and body felt afterwards. I have completed 45 minute bike workouts before without being sore two days later.

Today was a much needed day off, and I am attempting the computrainer workout again tomorrow morning. They all said it gets easier as you get more used to it, and also that after these computrainer rides, riding outside feels like a breeze. I hope that that is true. I'm reading a book talking about running and the mind. The last chapter I read talked about "running happy," and how if you are having fun and seeing improvements, you will work out more effectively. I can see that, because my frustrations are manifesting themselves in negative attitude towards working out and a feeling of inadequacy and inability. I know that it takes time to get back to where you were after a break, but it is so so so difficult to be patient. I hope I see improvements soon as I continue to workout regularly, and that I can start to "run happy." I'm hoping in October at the 70.3 race I can look back at this post and laugh about how silly I was to be so frustrated. Let's hope so anyway. :) Here's to my attempt at a positive attitude biking tomorrow...