The Truth-Talkin' Trainer

just waiting' for the car to warm up so I can see fills me with winter rage

Joy here...This week has been a tough one for me, and my rage has built throughout the week thanks to our failed first attempt at skiing.  Well, okay, to be more honest, I suppose I can't blame my mood on an activity that just didn't work out for us.  I mean, that's just silly.

The entrance to my spinning gym.

But at this time of the year, when the weather is cold and there's not enough daylight, I will admit that I feel the effects rather acutely of this season.  Everything seems like a big deal.  Going grocery shopping is somehow too hard; getting out of bed is like some sort of torture; working is a near-impossibility; and I lack all motivation for anything.  I feel like if I could crawl under the blankets and not get out until April-ish, I would do that.  I want to run away to Malaysia.  I want to play Rip Van Winkle and sleep until the season's over.  I want to hide.  I want to flee.  But all of that would take more energy and mojo than I have at the moment.

You see my difficulty?  It's S.A.D. all over again.  It hit me last year, and it's got me in its steely grasp again.

The outer door of the gym.
(A little free advertising doesn't hurt!)

But my Thursday morning spinning class was happening, despite my mood.  And I knew it would do me some good.  So I warmed up the car, drove The Man to work, took the car to spinning class (even though it's only 1.6kms away and I can easily run the distance), and settled in for a good ride with my excellent instructor.  I rode for the 60 minute class with my heart rate averaging 142 beats/min, and I sweated out some of my feelings of hate.

Then in the afternoon as part of my Thursdays which involve a morning spin class and an afternoon strength training session with The Trainer, who has become a friend and an integral part of my summer's cycling sisterhood, The Man and I trundled back to the gym so that we could have an hour with the Trainer (who owns the gym, which you can now find on Facebook) helping us to build all-around-fitness and core strength to augment our running and cycling goals.

Our Trainer is awesome.  She's become a good friend in the year since we've started working with her, and I was whinging and whining and off-loading my negative feelings about winter, about myself, about life in general, and she was having none of it.

She first began by building me up.  Telling me about the things that I have going for me that I should concentrate on.  Then she basically told me that I have all these things going for me, and at 35 I shouldn't waste them.  I shouldn't squander my many gifts and be unmotivated or weakly blaming S.A.D. for my lost mojo.

Then she gave me a hug and sent us on our way.

Hmmmmmm....

...that's a lot to think about.

She IS right.  I do have lots going for me.  I shouldn't sit around feeling unmotivated and like I somehow want to escape from my own life.

The Trainer's philosophy and the philosophy of the gym.
I gotta remember that.

And, as luck would have it, after that training session, which built up more than my mere muscles, but also my self-esteem, we were able to arrange a cross country skiing lesson with a Master-class skier who is willing to take on lowly beginners like us.

So Friday's gonna see us out there on our skis again, and with the Trainer's truth-talkin' pep-talk still ringing in my mind, I'm going to tackle this new sport with everything in me!

Over and out,
Joy