Fighting the De-Motivation Storm

For me, exercise motivation comes in cycles.  Right now it’s November, and I am deep into the triathlon off season. My workout week pretty much looks like this:

• Monday Swim
• Tuesday 10k run (home from work)
• Wednesday 20k bike (to and from work) & half an hour of gym core exercises and I get to swim for an hour if I don’t have to lifeguard.
• Thursday 10k run (home from work)
• Friday Swim
• Saturday Spin and a half hour of core. Sometimes I squeeze in a 10k run before hand.

I’m also working on a thirty day ab-challenge, but I don’t think that really counts.  I am going to try to keep doing the challenge or something similar to strengthen my core.  So far, since the spring, I've completed most of a planking challenge and another ab challenge.

Sometimes I’m up at five in the morning to go for swim and I’m extremely motivated, I can’t wait to get to the pool.  I’m looking forward to the week’s workouts and generally feel great. 

I can’t predict when I’m going to hit a low cycle in my workouts, but it happens every once in a while.   It usually starts out like this:

I wake up at 5am and it’s dark and cold.  I go into the bathroom and I don’t recognize the person staring back at me in the mirror.  This guy’s hair looks like it belongs to a street person.  His eyes are blurry and the skin on his face is droopy and it looks like the muscles in his face haven’t woken up yet.  He’s staggering around a bit like he’s had a few drinks.  Nobody makes motivational posters about this guy. 

Every once and a while, I doze off while eating my breakfast.

When I feel like this I can still have a great workout, but sometimes I don’t. 

Other times the down cycle starts with a run.  Trying to squeeze a 10k run on tired legs after a long day in the office  will make me walk and turn a run into a sufferfest.  A tough slow run like this can de-motivate me for the next while.

Sometimes it lasts one or two days and other times it last a week or so.  I start asking myself what am I knocking myself out for? My legs are tired, my back is tired, my arms are tired and generally my head it tired.  When racing, I don’t win my age group (45-50yrs) and I don’t have any huge goals about becoming an age group champion.

I exercise to have fun, race to have fun and sometimes it isn’t fun.

In the past I’ve simply weathered the un-motivated storm knowing that eventually I’ll have a couple of good workout that will shake me out of my funk.

Lately, I’ve recognized that my body is sending me messages and is trying to tell me that I’m not treating it well.  If my muscles are tired, I’m probably not feeding them well.  If I’m tight, I have to stretch.  Sleep is also important.  I’ve fallen asleep at the supper table before and I know that I should never get myself in that position. 

I have to treat myself properly and that involves listening to my body.  As I’m getting more experienced, this is becoming easier.  I also have a great group of people that expect me to be at these workouts and that helps me drag myself to workouts when I don’t really want to be there. 

Generally I know my workouts are helping.  I’m getting faster in the pool and faster running.  I’m not spending enough time on my bike to get faster, but I’ve got plans to spin in the evenings and we’ll see how that goes.