Gym session this morning, with a lot on my mind. Instead of dwelling on things, I focussed on the workout in hand, and had a fantastic session that included deep 'prisoner squats' (squats with your fingers laced together on the back of your head), farmers walk exercises using 'fat gripz' to increase the work your forearm has to do, incline chest press, and some exercises with the Vipr that includes a step-and-lateral-lift type work, and so on... My shoulders and forearms are sore now, a few hours later, so I can't even begin to think how they'll feel tomorrow, plus the squats were deep and tough, and I did some more later than included lifting and throwing an 8kg medicine ball at the same time. Hard. Work. I feel, though, very pleased with how it went, and how I dug in to get the work done. It's like a bit of a switch has gone off - I've realised that to see the results, I really AM going to have to put the work in. Awwww, look at me, growing as a person. Don't it warm the cockles of your heart? *laughs* So, in conclusion: yay!
Regarding the things on my mind, yesterday was a tough day, culminating in me coming to the decision to leave the online women's beginner running community I've been a daily part of for a couple of years. There are a number of reasons for this, but mostly it's because it's not really a running community any more, hasn't been for a while - it's a safe environment for women to chat about... well, anything really, I guess. While it's been great and I've been inspired by some pretty amazing women out there around the world, I'm no longer suited to the enviroment, as was made clear yesterday. My lower tolerance for some of the forum's aspects (for want of a better word - maybe 'characteristics' is another one...) has finally worn thin with those who run it, and after defending myself to someone, I was contacted and politely told to change my tone. Well, I'm not in a place right now to change who I am for others, so I'm sadly closing the door on what was quite an important part of my life. I'm hurt, but I know I made the right call. Without the forum, I wouldn't have met some of the most amazing people to have entered my life - not just directly, but as a secondary consequence - so I can only look back fondly on that part of my life, as I say goodbye to it.
Quite excited to see how the next stage of my life pans out now, though. I am learning so much about my running and my strength from the people now in my life, as can be seen by some of the recent posts here, and that's opened a number of other doors to me for sharing infomation about running, get/give support and constructive advice, and get the odd kick up the backside where I need it. So it's very much a case of 'as one door closes, another one opens' - (or, as the Mother Superior tells Maria in The Sound of Music, "as the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window", lol) - and now I kinda want to run up a hill (KINDA, BUT NOT REALLY) and circle about with my arms held wide, singing joyfully.
Note: If I actually ever ran up a proper hill, I would be in NO shape to dance around, singing, at the top. There would be pained wheezing, bent over with my hands on my thighs, and probably a fair bit of swearing. *laughs* Julie Andrews really wouldn't approve.
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