Fooling myself

So February's goal is to work out every day. So far, I am sitting at 100%, but it has been more difficult than I imagined.

It is pretty typical for me to run three times a week, and at certain times of the year I throw in a swim or maybe a bike ride on top of that. I knew moving to seven days a week would be more of a challenge, but I wasn't too worried about it. My work schedule has varied quite a bit this month, so I haven't found a standard time to get out. I have also been running low on sleep, so the sunrise hours have not been very tempting. I have found a way to make it happen each day, but have found myself rushing to the gym or running in the dark a few times.

One of the things I did not think about was laundry. I have a ton of running shirts picked up at various races, but do not have a weeks worth of shorts. Typically I can get by on one load of laundry a week, but not this month. I have had to do a couple late night loads of laundry in order to have workout clothes to pack the next morning.

My legs are pretty strong from years of running and biking, but my upper body only gets a workout during the occasional swims. However I do work in construction, so I thought there was a certain level of strength there. I don't do any sit ups, but the occasional day of mixing concrete provides a pretty good core workout. But I was fooling myself.

I have done a couple days of push ups, planks and sit ups to strengthen my core, and I was pretty embarrassed with the results. In my head, I thought I could hold a plank position for a couple of minutes, but my back was shaking almost immediately. I squeaked out 45 seconds but it wasn't pretty. I have been pretty fortunate to avoid much back pain in all the years of construction, but it is pretty clear that I need to work on these muscle groups to keep that streak alive.

February is turning out to be a good gut check month, quite literally.