OLD GUY PROBLEMS: YoYo Discipline

You might be surprised how many times I heard someone at the Spartan SoCal mention that they were going to IN-N-OUT for a burger on their way home. Each time someone said it my ears perked up because I had seen an IN-N-OUT on the drive in and had already decided that was where I was stopping on my way home.

There is nothing wrong with a post-race splurge. A small reward for the months of sacrifice.  The post-race beer offered at many events is given in the same spirit.  For me, however, the post-race splurge is the tip of the iceberg.

I am usually bloodied and bruised after a race. After SoCal I had a moderately sprained ankle.  This time my recovery was going to take at least a few weeks. But even with a normal post-race recovery I have a problem.

Like many of you, when I am not working out I can feel a little down.  When combined with my aches and pains I felt justified in lazing around.  I tended to eat more, eat things that were worse for me, and drink more.  Especially that last one.  Why oh why does wine make my back feel sooooo good?  The ankle sprain lingered and I even got lazy and skimped on my rehabbing exercises. The bad diet and drinking stretched to two weeks before I moved off the couch.

Looking back, I realize I have the same problem on a smaller scale even during my normal training regimine.  Instead of "recovery weeks" I call them "rest weeks". And when I say "rest" I mean "eat and drink crap".  

There is also an inkling of this mentality each weekend.  I train hard during the week and tend to splurge on weekends.

In the end this might be the kind of thing I could get away with in my 20s or 30s.  But I am finding this incredibly difficult at age 45.  This YoYo of strict discipline versus recklessness is something I simply cannot maintain anymore.  Each time I restart my workouts my body hurts and I have given up much of my cardio or muscle gains.  My joints hurt and I feel weak. I am probably risking injury.

For me the solution seems to be to stop being so strict during my weekdays so that when I reach the weekend I do not feel like a parolee on my first day out of prison.  I have also stopped calling my time off a "rest week".  I now have only "active recovery weeks".  These are small changes but they put me in the right mindset to avoid these extreme behaviors in the future.