UGH!!

I couldn't let a whole week go by without posting *something* no matter how lame and embarrassed I honestly feel. I'm beyond bummed out right now and was not anticipating hitting such a rough spot so early in the game :(. Injury and illness have proven to be momentum killers for me and this past week has put me through the ringer emotionally and physically. I'm trying not to get down on myself too much and not let this bruised ego of mine bring me down.

I'm still trying to shake off lingering symptoms of the nasty chest cold/sinus infection I caught last week and it has been anything but comfortable. Just when I think I'm feeling better the night/early morning will hit me with a fiery chest, painfully dry cough, and/or swollen, drippy sinuses. These swings are doing nothing to help my mood.

On top of illness I experienced a mild injury after my workout last Thursday. I was feeling a lot better after my worst days of being sick and was so happy to work out that I may have over done it. I'm still not convinced that is what happened though. It may have been that I landed wrong on my foot as I was rushing down the stairs to work that morning but either way I irritated my right knee somehow. It felt like a pulled nerve that extended upward from my knee into my hamstring. I tried to take it easy during work that day but my Nanny family lives on the second floor of their apartment and I had to go up and down a few times during the day adding to the irritation. I tried to workout the following morning and realized I was doing more harm than good :(. I stopped and tried to spend the day resting my leg and sick body since it was my day off on Friday. Saturday and Sunday hit me like a freight train. I felt like I was going non-stop both days and didn't get to sit down and really plan out the upcoming week which proved to be detrimental to the flow I was trying so hard to maintain.

On Sunday I forced myself out of bed so that I could keep my promise of joining my cousin for our weekly hike. I bought a knee brace the night before and strapped it on snugly hoping for the best. It was the first morning of daylight savings time O_0 so luckily we started an hour later than usual. I was up at 4:45am and left the house at 5:15. Oi. The 6mile (RT) hike in the hills of Altadena really lifted my spirits. I felt my legs warming up and the pain seemed to melt away on the way up. Coming down was another story. I had to go really slowly at first because the combination of the incline and pressure on my knee was no bueno. I felt fluctuations between pain and normalcy during the entire trip down. All in all I think getting out and working my legs was more beneficial than the progress I'd felt just resting it. I spent the rest of the day running errands and finally got some time to rest during the evening.

The feeling of getting swallowed up by an avalanche has carried on into this week. It's my heavy week at work so I'm working 7am-6pm M-F. That means up by 530a at the latest and home by 7p at the earliest. This will be my schedule next week as well (except off at 5p instead of 6p). With the long hours, time change adjustment and lingering sickness I'm absolutely exhausted by the time I get home. I dove face first into bed on Tuesday night right when I got home and didn't wake up until I heard my alarm in the morning. I humored the thought of getting up at 4:45a to work out but the hacking cough and sinus pain it at is worst at that point and I just haven't been able to make myself do it.

So all in all I'm in the midst of a low point that I'm determined to pull myself out of. I'm going to try my damndest to work out tomorrow AM or at least go for a walk after work so that I can get the fire roaring again into the weekend. I intend on taking this weekend to plan for next week (because it makes being successful so much easier when you have a food/exercise plan when you know things are going to be busy/chaotic) and to really refocus and lick my wounds. When the negativity starts getting into your head its so easy to let go and give up. Not happening. Even though the progress I felt at the end of last week seems to have disappeared I'm pulling up those bootstraps and going at it again, head on. There are two videos that really inspired me to refuse to run away from what I've been feeling. I'll post them below. Thanks for reading and staying tuned in. Words of encouragement and motivation would be greatly appreciated!! :)