Have you ever gone back to an activity and its felt like a hard slog – just to start?
I always find the start of the netball season tricky. When I say the start it used to be the fitness/training component – these days, fitness and training doesn’t exist (unless you do it yourself), warmup is definitely optional and the game weeellll if you play a whole game that’s called ‘drawing the short straw’ – except if your me, everyone knows I’ll stay on for as long as needed – 5th quarter anyone??
I recently started F45, its been amazing and I love it. My fitness and my body shape changed overnight, yes I was sore for about 2 weeks but then things settled and now its up to me to create that by pushing myself – or Nick (the Manager) gets excited and encourages you to do more (again I can’t help myself).
My first goal with F45 was to get through that first session without vomiting – tick. From there it was about turning up. For those that don’t know me, my nick name is ‘Snooze’ or ‘Snoozen’ – I love to sleep. I can sleep anywhere and if I don’t get enough – watch out, ha ha. I opted to do the 5.10am F45 classes, this meant that my fitness was done for the day, I could still do other components of my ‘Soul Hour’ – meditation, gratitude and journaling, plus work on my passions before the family rose and our day began. 4 months in, turning up is a tick.
My next goal is about my overall fitness. It will come as long as I keep turning up and stepping up – so consider that a tick too!!
When I started running 3 years ago, off the back of a conversation with my sister where I laughed at her for wanting to run 5km in a fun run – we ended up doing that, then I did the 10km – who had the last laugh.
I realised early on that I needed accountability, I needed something to keep me on track so I recommended we do C25k (Couch to 5km app). This worked a charm as we both reported into each other on our progress, but the app also keep us on track.
I went to the US for work around week 7 of app (C25k is an 8 week program). I was worried about jetlag and work getting in the way but I knew I had to get it done, so I was up at 6am to go to the gym and run on the treadmills – the weather was too cold in Washington DC for me to go outside. I made it happen and the app again kept me accountable – tick.
Running was challenging for me, a mental challenge. Its one of the times when I hear the voice in my head the loudest ‘why are you wasting your time’, ‘you don’t have to run’, ‘your not fast so why bother’, ‘walking is so much easier’ etc. I had to quieten that voice, focus on the goal and keep moving forwards. Some days I was just focusing on one foot in front of the other, other days it was focusing on a song at a time, other days it was saying mantras like ‘your awesome’, ‘I love you’, ‘can you believe we’ve run 1km already – that’s amazing, keep going’.
The lessons I learnt during this time were epic. On my last run of C25k I strained my calf muscle during the run. I had about 1.5km to go. Yes I should have stopped but I knew I had to finish the run – and the app, so I slowed down and limped my way through it. 2 weeks later, after rest, physio, dry needling and skins, I finished the 5km fun run easily. I then started the 10km training the following week.
Over the last 2 weeks I’ve gone down water slides lots! Teddy has had the best time riding them and Chris & I are part of the adventure – mummy or daddy chasing him, him chasing us, Teddy sitting on our laps etc. its all been happening. I can tell you the fitness to get up those staircases is hard work and a new type of fitness. Even after 2 weeks of ‘water slide training’ I was struggling to breathe. I think I was elbowed in the chest at masters or maybe I strained a muscle ‘swinging’ to get a good launch onto the water slide, and it hasn’t helped, oh and my dodgy knee – I need to take it slowly up the windy staircase!
The fun has been in the execution, the splash at the end, the wall of water in my face, the hat floating on the surface of the pool because its come off due to the force of hitting the water, Teddy laughing and saying ‘again’. All these things we do as kids and as adults we struggle to embrace – we need to embrace them more.
We need to embrace the challenges – both physical and mental, we need to strive to grow even more because in doing those things we’re setting the standard for our kids, and the standards they’ll set for their kids. Most of all you need to do them for you, so you grow more, laugh more, love more because anything is possible xo
