Motivation or Something Like It

I've had two rough trainer sessions this week. They were both two hours but I can say I am less sore after my ride last night than I was after Tuesdays ride. Thankfully I had Taylor Swift and my friends over at The Big Bang Theory, The Office and Park's and Rec to keep me company last night.

Even with the best company I still find it hard to drum up motivation, which is obviously clear if you look at my workout log the past few months. Just looking at stats for the past few months shows a clear pattern...when I am motivated for something I train harder.

 

I guess this is a pretty simple concept and I touched on it in my last post when I mentioned I need a new goal to work towards. Truth is I am craving a goal to work towards. I joked with Erik that I can't really make a new PR goal for a race because the only race I did my goal was to finish. My time was not so great, but I could ride that course today and beat my time with my eyes closed. Of course that's hypothetically speaking because I have yet to master the whole cycling with my eyes blindfolded technique. Hmm...maybe that should be my new goal?

I could make my goal to beat my previous century ride time but I can think of one reason why that wouldn't be a far challange - hills.

My first century we climbed over 3000 feet with one especially killer hill. This century will feature about 800 feet of climbing with the biggest "hill" being that of a bridge over a highway. Yup.

So, even if I beat my previous century time I will still feel like I cheated abit with such a easy course. Of course now that I say this I will probably end up in tears somewhere along the course or something crazy. The biggest issues that I could potentially see causing me to want to quit the ride are:

• The weather. It's Central New York and we've been known to have snow on the ground by Halloween. Right now the forecast is predicting low 50's with chance of rain. Cold and rain don't seem like the best time on a bike...that's why I bought a bike trainer after all.
• Boredom. The course is three 33 mile loops with a extra mile added on at the end. The fact that I can sit on my bike trainer for 2 hours at a time and not want to ride my bike through the window speaks volumes, but still I worry about the mind numbing silence that often occurs on long rides in the middle of nowhere. Plus, Erik always seems to ride just enough a head of me to not be able to hear me complain.
• Getting sick. Ever since I had a training ride where I got sick about 20-30 miles in I always have this fear that I will get sick again during a ride. Nutrition is a tricky subject for me currently and during the century I basically survived on gels and GU like it was my job. My stomach made it quite clear that day that solid food was not allowed but I am hoping that was because my body already hates itself when it's hot.

Of course I suppose there are a few positives to look forward to:

• The weather. I know, how can this be both good and bad? Well, I thrive in colder weather, seriously it's my jam. I don't get overheated and nasous and that's pretty awesome.
• It's one last chance to ride outside until April/May. Sure I don't mind my trainer now, but I'm guessing after I spend the next 5-6 months solely riding on that I may want to throw it out of the window.

So to recap in case you got bored and skipped to the bottom, I know we all do it sometimes: I still have no goals, I'll be eating alot of GU next weekend and will attempt to not get sick.

Happy Belated Anniversary To Me

Blogging consistently is tough, I'm busy, I'm sure you are busy, so yeah let's just leave it there.

I'm currently free as one arm has a IV sticking out of it*. I'd provide a picture but who really needs or wants to see that? It's that time again, infusion day, and honestly I have no idea what number infusion it is. I was going to ask the nurse but she graciously allowed me to escape about 30 minutes early after I joked that I've spent a ridiculous amount of hours in the infusion chairs.

A few weeks ago I quietly remembered it was my diagnosis 4 year "anniversary." There may have been cake and there probably would have been wine if I could have found the corkscrew. Every year I've set out to make things better or push myself harder. You know, kinda as a way to say F-you MS, I'm better than ever...or maybe some kind of a I'm awesome and MS just isn't. The people in my life that know I have MS are always surprised on my positive attitude on things but the reality is that I believe if you wait for doom to come it will make your life miserable. Why be miserable if you can choose to live in the moment and just be happy? Positivity is the best drug, seriously, and as cheesy as it sounds I really do believe it.

I'm proud of what I've accomplished since my diagnosis (i.e., graduating college, getting a job, completing a century ride) but I can't help but wonder what I am going to do in the years to come. When I was diagnosed the major thing I wanted to accomplish and worked towards for a long time was the century ride, but now that's done and over with...so what's next?

It's a weird feeling having no big goal to work for...so I am hoping I'll be able to come up with that sometime soon. To keep myself busy I've signed up for a last minute century ride the first Saturday in November. When I say I've signed up I really mean is that I was egged on by two coworkers and my boyfriend so while I would have happily remained in pj's all day I guess that isn't going to happen. I realize that it is less that two weeks away, and yeah it's going to hurt quite a bit. I've been using my bike trainer which is awesome but I am no where close to being in century shape. I spent two hours on my trainer Tuesday night for some much needed saddle time and I'm still sore today. I'm trying to look at the two major positives for this ride - it's a flat course and my parents live near by so I can be rescued with a quick phone call.

Life is funny though because as soon as I moved my social life ramped up and my schedule has become slammed. The dishes in my sink are piling up and my cabinets are looking bare as I try to find time to hit the store. It's definitely a learning curve to keeping things going, and I'm becoming a master planner at scheduling my time which helps. I just keep saying to myself that things will calm down next month, but truth is I've been saying that for the past 3 months.

Here's to hoping to a quiet November I guess...

*uh, yeah, that was Monday, today is Thursday...whoops