Thursday, November 24, 2011

Lost...

Wrote this one last week while I was away on holidays.....  It reads somewhat like a diary entry - I guess it literally was?!  Me sitting with a notepad (for lack of blog availability) and writing out my thoughts...

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You know it's a pretty sad state of affairs when you have that realisation that despite having nowhere to go, noone to see, nowhere to be... you actually realise just how truly lost you are underneath the daily grinds of jobs, schedules, deadlines, expectations... etc etc.

Having set out on yet another sweaty-adventure recently - my City 2 Sea 14kms in Melbourne - with my sister and "Super Twin" Lynda in tow, I was in a little denial about what this 'get out of town' card truly was.

For a few months I've been harbouring the start of "doubt" - filtering through the thought system like a cancer - threatening to undo my focus and unleash havoc - but I've held strong and stayed on track. My City 2 Sea challenge always my beacon ahead keeping me in check.

For weeks I'd been training up for the day - my fitness is at an all time high. I've been a regular gym-junkie; paraded myself multiple times over Mount Panorama, even brutalised the feet with two stints of a 10-12kgs backpack on my shoulders to make it harder / up the intensity and endurance. I even hit a double-lap of the Mountain before I left on my Melbourne trip a few days before, just to push it into my head how ready I really was.

By the time I made it to Melbourne, I WAS running on pure excitement. I left Bathurst in a hurry. Finalised a few jobs, put the others 'on hold' and ran out the door.

As addicted to these fun-runs as I am, it wasn't the only driving force behind fleeing my life...

I needed a break. From everything. A change of scenery, a change of pace, new sights, challenges, faces... the works.

And running off to do a 14kms fun-run was ample excuse enough! The City 2 Sea itself was FABULOUS!!   ... and I was super happy with my "1hr 57mins" time. I walked (albeit shuffled) away with my medal, a very happy girl.

... until a couple days later. After both my sister and Lynda left, I was left to my own devices.

... and it was then that I realised just how lost I truly was. Having finished the goal that had been my driving force for the past couple months, left me a little abandoned, quite winded.

No pressing client deadlines, no full-time internet access (which takes up SO much of my time usually - responding to emails and questions; looking after my FB page; keeping in contact with everyone)...  I had no commitments and my 'reason' for the trip was already complete!

I felt completely lost.

It rattled me. It's a really horrible feeling not knowing where you want to be - what you want to do. Feeling completely obsolete - it hurt to the core!!

I was given the keys to my Auntie's car and told I could basically come and go as I pleased. What a weird feeling to have - there with all the freedom in the world and I had no idea what to do with it!  (Ironic really, I'm self-employed, live on my own, no ties... I already DO have all the freedom in the world, and still feel 'obligated' elsewhere)...

I've never had that confidence or curiosity enough to jump in the car and "just go somewhere" - I'm a planner and things like that I've actually avoided from sheer lack of confidence in myself.

Butterflies in my tummy told me that I was questioning my ability to drive anywhere - yet the possibility of actually doing something new "just for me" was almost overwhelming!!

"Have GPS - will travel?!!"

Jumped in the car today and managed to find my way to my grandpa's house on my own (... a necessity!  After all, I had the dessert for lunch, haha!)

Jumping back in the car later, a trip around the Geelong CBD and beyond, and I was almost "cocky" driving around like I knew where I was going and had some reason to do it!!!

A walk around the local area on my own, and I was pretty chuffed! Not bad for the girl with no sense of direction, no confidence to do these things in 'unknown locations'....

Hitting the beach in swimmers and boardies... wearing a singlet to the supermarket... walking into the plaza and going clothes shopping, "just like a normal person"....  oh my god...  I can't even begin to explain how liberated I felt! It was empowering! My first ever holiday that I actually felt like I existed!!!    (... and how ironic that I was struggling with feeling so irrelevant...!!)



I came on my adventure knowing I'd left behind a wad of nagging questions about my future...  I knew "I wasn't quite right" but really hadn't taken the time to acknowledge it in its entirity.

Wasn't until I felt "completely lost" from my lack of pressing commitmets that I realised the lack of substance that all these commitments actually were hiding...

THIS was my universe telling me it's time to sort myself out. Get some structure and goals into place. Put into practice new adventures and challenges so I DO have "somewhere to go and a reason to get there" - my future.  The one I've been trying to believe in since I started my life transformation...

Without that, you're stagnant. Going nowhere, and having nothing to keep you moving ahead.

Big decisions on the horizon - do I uproot myself from the "comfortable security" of my everyday current life?  - go in search of the things I'm still missing??  Or do I step it up with what I already love in the place I feel most comfortable in and keep building on what I've done so far...

Time to ask the big questions. There's so much more to this huge life transition than just my weightloss...  It just feels so empty now.

I've opened the floodgates... must be time to get out there and make waves?!

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SO as it turned out, a couple days later I did a SECOND fun-run - Run Geelong, for 12kms - on my own... and absolutely loved every kilometre of it!   I completed this run in about 1hr 35mins and smashed out so many running intervals, I was absolutely STOKED!  It wasn't pre-planned, just heard about it while we were in town visiting the relatives, and had to do it - because that's now what I do!

The week off between events - and the break it gave my body - paid off.  I came home feeling reenergised and raring to go.  Taking a 'break' from reality was a strategic move - I needed OUT from my world for a while....Coming home after, I felt like I'd actually achieved that!

I'd "calmed" the soul and soothed the lingering questions - was all set to get myself back into my business, and put the weightloss "job" aside for a while. Give my body and head a break - and really teach myself how to LIKE the body I am in, appreciate it "as it is" and the person I've become...

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A little note to self I typed on my phone on the drive home...  

Learning to be 'normal'...  I just want to be normal.  I don't plan on being a SLAVE to this weightloss thing for the rest of my life... I see it in other people, the things they say and how they talk about themselves and their weight - and it verges on obsession. I don't want to be the person that's always fluffing on about the food I eat, what exercise I do - there's much more to AMY than what the scales say, what I weigh, how many calories I've eaten today, what size clothing label is sewn into my collar....

My little trip away has been great for me - made me realise how much I DON'T want to obsess like that for the rest of my life...  how much more "alive" I feel just being me!  So much wasted time and nonsensical whinging about something that will ALWAYS come and go. My body and I will be working on this for life - so be it - but I don't want to be a slave to it forever...  Driving me insane with the constant anxiety of what a set of scales says!! 

I want balance and flexibility.  I want to be healthy and fit.  I want to be STRONG.  I want to feel beautiful in my skin.  I want to be loved and to love myself.  I want to be ME - not an invalidated statistic... 
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I thought I'd found my sense of reasoning again...  but the Universe had other plans....


Am currently in an "emotional limbo" right about now...  my heart is broken.  Not yet ready to go into specifics on the public platform here - but I'm shattered with what's happened since I came home...

Just when you think you're 'ok' (and you've spent the better part of the entire week trying to learn how to do that...) - it doesn't take much to derail you again.

.. fighting the 'lost' feeling...   I know I'm far too stubborn to let it win, but by god it drains you....

Thursday, November 10, 2011

I.have.bandaids.on.my.butt..... !

OK, so given I'm in plateau mode (and would really love to say I wasn't, but the body won't shift out of this pesky 2-kilo zone I'm in... SIGH!)... I've been focusing solely on my fitness this round of the 12wbt - and changing things up accordingly in my lead-up to my next major fitness goal - the Melbourne City 2 Sea this Sunday 13 November!

Going REALLY awesome in the last month - busting serious butt and loving it!!   Laps around Mount Panorama (here in Bathurst) with 10-12kgs on my back with my local 12wbt girls, even a double-lap last Sunday in prep of my 14kms to come.  Adding in aqua classes and increased laps, upping my Pump weights and increasing my running/shuffling so I could prep for Melbourne!   Fighting through muscle soreness and the most hideous toe-blisters I've ever endured in my life!!   I thought I was pretty much "ready for anything" .... until last night!!!

Started Cardio Box classes at the gym last Friday, and LOVED IT - wasn't a super-intense class my first one, more just technique and strategy and some upright punching!    Til last night's class... was an absolute KILLER!

I have never done so many freaking situps in my LIFE!   Hell, I'd even go so far as to say I haven't done a SERIES of situps in a row EVER least of all multiple series in a circuit routine like that!!!   And I busted them out, one after the other, after the other!!  By the final circuit on the floor, my belly muscles were screaming, my tailbone was KILLING!!!  I could barely lift myself the final 10seconds, but still managed one last situp and a final punch!  I'm not one to verbally complain about workouts too much (ha!  I kinda love them now...) - but even *I* was moaning and groaning by the end of that, and absolutely drenched in sweat!!   That was a whole wad of AWESOME!!!   

Followed that with a Pump class, and wondered why the hell my arms were shaking the way through it... Couldn't figure out why my legs could barely get my squat presses out (irrespective of the 25kgs on my shoulders - that's what I normally do!!!)....  I usually nail that Pump class, it's my favourite! 

Walked out of that gym last night a "broken woman" with the biggest freaking smile on my face!!  I haven't had a butt-busting like that in AGES - and I loved it!!

Climbing into bed last night, I rolled over, and wondered what the hell was going on when my lower back just started to ACHE like crazy!!!  Stinging sensations running right through my lower back and top of my bum... KNEW I'd probably bruised my tailbone with all the situps on the gym floor, but then when I touched the spot, realised it was a little more dire than that!!!

Had a freaking BLISTER ON MY BUTT - well, at the top of my buttcrack to be more specific (TMI?!!)  - and the skin was rubbed red raw, and well, weeping like crazy!!!  (oh yeah, THAT was TMI!!!)    Slapped on the Vitamin E cream and went back to bed - after a whole WAD of "ow ow ow ow ow ow" stinging whinges (stung like a bloody mofo!!!) and jumping around trying to take my mind off the ache - and went back to bed, somewhat in disbelief!

Inspecting the damage this morning, and yep, beautifully red raw skin on this arse!!!  Uh oh...  I have 2.5hours in the car, an hour on the train, then a flight down from Syd to Melb to go yet today.... 

I'm currently sitting here with six bandaids on my buttcrack holding me together!  Off to the pharmacy shortly for one sizeable enough to cover the damage AND my bum (do they make them that big?!!  bahahahhaa)....

.... and Sunday's 14kms should prove "interesting" now.... !!!   

I posted up on my FB page today, thinking surely I'm not the ONLY weirdo who bruises/blisters their bum in the course of greatness!!   ... and quite pleased to report I'm not alone (phew!)...  but gotta watch those situps!   The aftermath is NOT fun!!!!  

And here I was thinking it was just my TOES that were keeping the bandaid industry afloat... !!!

Definitely chalking this one up as Number Two in my series of "Warped Injuries" - the first being my carpet burn directly under my nose from going face-first on the gym floor because of my new shoes...  Ahhh I dare say there'll be more to add in the future!!   (eek..)

*** was going to post a photo.... but yeah, noone wants to see my arse like that, bahahahhaha!!!!   ;)