Dear lord, I have been busy.  I remember setting up my calendar for September and going, “Oh woof, I’m traveling a lot”.  Little did I know, on top of all of that travel, I would also have a couple major projects due at work, which required more late nights and weekends on my laptop than I’m proud of.  So let’s get started on a little recap of what’s going on over here:

My boyfriend was in Thailand for three weeks, which was all fun and games on paper.  But, in practice, it was a nightmare for me.  I had to travel a fair amount while he was away, to Dallas to New York to Philly, so my poor little dog, Boo, had to spend a good amount of time at Doggy Daycare.  I’m not going to lie, there were often times when I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  In fact, I still kind of feel that way.

Enter last week.  Welcome to my wonderful world of traveling around visiting business schools.  It’s awesome and so fun…or it would be if I also didn’t have two massive proposals due.  I flew out to Chicago to visit a couple of schools and see my family.  Although I was massively stressed during a large part of the trip, I got to balance it with ample amounts of play with my family.  I am very #blessed to have an extremely a) hilarious b) supportive family and love spending time with them.  One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t live closer.

I spent Friday hopping from the Starbucks on campus doing work to taking many a campus tour of a University I more or less grew up visiting weekly, so when the work day was done I was beat.  Naturally, I took out my stress on a plate of nachos and with a side of good company.  Saturday morning, cousin, my aunt, and some of her friends laced up for a 7 mile run around the campus I had visited the day before.  I cannot express how thankful I was for this run.

Running is such a unique activity.  There’s not that feels quite like it.  Lately, I have found myself aching to just run when I’m standing still.  All of the anxiety, stress, and frustration that is building up within me makes me want to just launch into a sprint.  I could have run forever on Saturday.  My legs were energized, I had an appropriate carbo-load via nachos/taco dip, and the conversation was amazing.  Being able to unplug my brain and just move was all I could have asked for.

I headed back home on Sunday morning and sat on the flight reflecting on where my head has been these past couple of weeks.  Truthfully, I have been viewing fitness as an outlet more than anything else.  I have so many goals I’m working towards in other areas of my life, I don’t really have time to focus on any in my gym life.  And, I’m okay with that.

Because I’m not wrapped up in my daily performance on my runs, lifts, or aesthetics, I treat my gym time as brain time.  I can watch a mindless show or listen to a podcast while on the treadmill or doing weights and that is what I need right now.  I have goals in my fitness life that I’m eager to crush in a couple months, but right now, I have to focus my energies elsewhere.  The gym is just my daily mental break.

I’m very thankful that fitness is fluid.  The day I realized that every workout didn’t have to be better than the last was one of the best days I’ve had.   Knowing that my workouts can be challenging during the week, but recovery days are just as important was a fact that took me longer to learn than I care to admit.

All this being said, I’m not just throwing away my progress.  No, I’m focusing on just maintaining for now.  I’ll throw in some speed workouts and heavier days now and then, but for now my drive has to be refocused on the real world.

By the end of next week, I will have been in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, North Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, and Texas all within a months span.  Needless to say, I am crazy.  And I’m busy. One may venture to say I am crazy busy as well.  There’s a time and a place for goals and right now, my goal is to stay afloat.  By no means am I throwing away any hardwork, just restructuring how I’m going after it.

-sj