Where is My Mojo

Posts Tagged ‘johnny depp’

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mojo. Where are you?

In Bike, Marathons and Half, Run, Swim, Triathlons on September 10, 2013 at 11:05 PM

It’s been long since I last wrote. And it’s been long since I last trained. Since the “Hell City” race (a.k.a. Ironman Florida 70.3 in Haines City) it’s been really hard to get back on the training wagon. Hell City, as renamed by my friend and teammate Karla, was… well? HELL. She couldn’t have given it a better name. The heat was excruciating during the run and doing three loops with two climbs each for a total of 6, was… ahem… HELL. To me at least.

Since after the race, back in May, all up to maybe a month ago, I was feeling terribly guilty because I was not training properly. I would maybe go out for a long run on a Sunday, but skip the previous Saturday brick workout. Or vice versa. And during the week, I couldn’t find the strength to get out of bed at 5am. Then it wasn’t even not training properly, it was not training at all. The guilt trip I submitted myself to was horrendous. Many Friday nights I packed my transition bag for the next day’s brick workout. As soon as the alarm would go off at 5:15am there was no incentive attractive enough to get me out of the bedsheets. Not even if I was told that Robert Downey Jr., Ryan Gosling, and Johnny Depp were all waiting for me at Alien Endurance Beach. Turning off the alarm had become my new sport.

The interesting thing about this funk I was (and still) going through, was that it was not physical. It was worse. Mental. I was mentally broken into pieces. My body was strong. My mind and will power, frail.

The guilt trip went on for quite some time, until my friend and teammate (also Hell City finisher) MyMultipersonality returned from her summer gig and were talking about what we were both going through. She made me realize that I had been going non-stop (and so had she) since January of last year. More or less this is what I’ve been up to for the past year and a half (or more):

  • January 2012 – ING Half Marathon
  • April 2012 – Nautica South Beach Triathlon/Classic Distance
  • April 2012 – Key Biscayne Half Marathon
  • May 2012 – Tri Miami/Sprint Distance
  • June 2012 – Trilogy #1/Sprint Distance
  • June through September – Training for my first 70.3 (Augusta)
  • September 2012 – Escape to Miami Triathlon/International Relay – Bike
  • September 2012 – ESI IronMan 70.3 Augusta
  • October 2012 – Started training for a full marathon which then I downgraded to a half after running 20 miles of physical and mental pain
  • November 2012 – Miami Man Triathlon/International Distance
  • November – Turkey Trot/10K
  • January 2013 – ING Half Marathon
  • February 2013 – Chapman Partnership Run Wild/5K
  • February 2013 –  Disney Princess Half Marathon
  • March – May – Training for my second 70.3 (Hell City)
  • April 2013 – Nautica South Beach Triathlon/Classic Distance
  • May 2013 – Ironman 70.3 Florida (a.k.a. Hell City)

I’m completely out of breath from just writing all of the above. Mind you, this does not account for 2011 which was my first year of triathlon-ing. Click here for full list.

Thanks to Edith I purposely began to skip training all together and give my mind and body the rest it needed, guilt-free. I haven’t bothered in setting the alarm at 5am, much less on a Saturday. I’m listening to my body, and I am really enjoying it. At one point I felt I was going to be left behind. But now I’m certain that when I get back I will pick it up very quickly with a stronger body, and a mind that will not be sabotaging me along the way.

I now feel so good, that tonight I went out on a one-hour run with Karla and I felt like a million bucks. Body responded well. My mind was at ease. Now my soul is at peace. Little by little I think I’m getting my mojo back (yeah, baby! In the words of Austin Powers).

For what’s left of the year, I will not race. I’m done. I’m hoping to be at full throttle by October as I’m already signed up for the ING Half Marathon 2014 and will be doing my first Ragner race with my friends and teammates a week after the ING. Those are the two races I am registered for early next year. Soon I will look into doing a couple of 70.3s for 2014, to prepare myself for 2015 when I plan to do a full Ironman once I have turned 50. I hope by then I am still kicking and stretching and kicking like Sally O’Malley.

Good night, folks!