Get up and go!

Daylight Savings made you lose a whole hour sleep. It’s pitch black outside at six AM. It’s raining here in California and your body is still recuperating from a winter cold. I’ll bet the last thing you want to do is workout. We all go through the mid-season training slump. Here are three reasons to get right back on track:

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. –Douglas MacArthur

1. Taking a week off training could count as planned periodization depending on the athlete. But taking a week off due to flu or bout of laziness is a very dangerous place.  In just a week, you lose small amounts of strength, endurance, flexibility, and even gain weight. Once you take two and three and four weeks back you face an uphill battle. That first day back is the most difficult and the most crucial. No matter how much time you took off training the best way to get back on track is to just do it. You’ve come too far to quit. This is your lifestyle now. Exercise and clean eating are not over after you slink into your Black and White Ball gown. They are for the rest of your life. You lost some time. So what. Just jump right back in!

Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever. —Lance Armstrong

 2. Renew your motivation by setting a new fitness goal. Double Eagle Fitness is currently recruiting for bodies to run the Marin Human Race in support of the Matrix Parent Network and for the American Cancer Society Novato Relay for life. There’s a goal. Join our team! Trust the fitness base you have already. Trust your muscle memory. Strength, endurance, and flexibility will not only return but continue to improve. Click here to join our team: http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?team_id=1147247&pg=team&fr_id=36871

 If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.  ~Buddhist Saying

3. What’s the alternative? If you don’t get right back on the horse then you will continue to gain weight, elevate blood pressure, increase LDL cholesterol, decrease bone density, limit flexibility, weaken your immune system–inviting more flu and colds, fatigued, and fatter. So bribe yourself by promising a massage once you complete ten workouts. Set a goal and join Team Double Eagle Fitness for Relay for Life or the Human Race and run a 5K, 10K, or 12K. Ease yourself back into that exercise pool and don’t take more than two days off for another six months!

Pull yourself together and use what you have.  ~Betsy Cañas Garmon