I have been fantasizing about taking a series of days off from my workouts. Like maybe three or four days in a row of nothing. No swimming, no interval training, no free weights, no boxing, no tennis. Walking is pretty much unavoidable with a dog, but I fantasize about not doing that too.
Why all the fantasizing? My body is tired. When I get up in the middle of the night to pee, my feet and legs are stiff. Not terribly, but enough to remind me of all the hours of exercise that I've been logging. And in the morning, everything is stiff - shoulders, back, neck, arms, butt, legs, feet. It's not a rigid stiffness or an uncomfortable soreness, but it is constant. There is really only one day out of the week when I do not feel sore, and that's the day after my rest day if (and only if) my rest day came after a light exercise day with the kids (basketball, easy soccer drills, etc.). Those are few and far between.
My lower back is still giving me fits, as is my sciatica. I informed the boxing coach at the gym yesterday that I am not doing deadlifts anymore. They hurt my lower back. I need to find another way to work my hamstrings without stressing my lower back.
Despite feeling tired and sore, I feel much stronger and significantly smaller. So it's all worth it. I am a bit concerned about injuring myself even though I am careful to do only what I am comfortable doing and keeping proper form. Still, with all this exercising, I need to be extra cautious. I have been extremely lax about stretching and am trying to train myself to stretch before and after a workout. On my swim days, I consider swimming a post workout stretch.
Yesterday I scheduled 30min elliptical intervals, 10min stationary bike, a 30min walk, and a 30min swim, for a total of 1 hr and 40min. I took a break from work mid-afternoon and headed out for my walk. For the first half mile, my legs screamed "NO!" but failure was not an option, so I kept going. My legs did finally warm up, but my lower back stayed tight the whole walk.
Later I went to the gym for elliptical intervals followed by a stationary bike cool down. I followed my routine, but I didn't put out my usual amount of energy. Just too tired.
After that, I went to another gym for my swim. I really had to talk myself in to that swim. I reasoned that I could skip the swim and do a 30min strength training session with the bands at home or get on the ski machine, but I knew that I would not. I wanted nothing more than to serve up a bowl of paleo chili that had been simmering on the stove and eat it while watching TV. The temptation to abandon my workout "because I had already exercised for an hour and 10 minutes" would be too great. So I went to the pool. It was cold and windy. I swam 5 minutes then tried to convince myself that a 25 minute or even 20 minute swim would be sufficient. But in the end, I swam the entire 30 minutes.
While I swam, I calculated the time it would take me to walk to the gym showers, wait for the water to heat up, shower, dress, get my stuff back together, and walk to the car. I don't know if I thought of anything else during my swim yesterday except getting it over with and arriving back home clean and done for the day.
Working out is hard. Dieting is hard. Sometimes just putting one foot in front of another is hard.
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