Highway to Hell or should I say Highway of Hell

So I was creeping my niece's pinterest boards this evening and came across this one that I thought was so fitting to what the last couple days have been for me in the fitness aspect of my life.

Ever have one of those days when you're a bit down and having a "party for one" in the pity department?  Well that was me on Saturday so I decided to use the best endorphin booster that I know of.  Exercise!  Strapped on the old running shoes and headed out to sweat my badittute out.  Tunes cranked.  Began by walking at a fairly brisk rate.  Walked a little further than normal.  A lot further than normal.  Began to jog.  Ya know, that running thing, she can be such a moody beeatch when she wants to be.  You never know what she's going to throw your way.  Those of you that run on a fairly regular basis will know exactly what I'm talking about.  One day she's your best friend and you can run like Forrest and the next time she is the devil!  Saturday she was Lucifer himself and I felt like I was running on a highway of hell.  I ended up going almost 4 miles but it was the WORST RUN EVER.

Why am I telling you this?  I'm sharing this story because it applies to so many aspects of our lives.  When we're in the box @ ShopGym, there are times when I can let my mind go all the way to the extreme of "I'm the worst, slowest, crappiest ShopGym athlete ever!" when really all it was was I didn't get more than 1 pullup on the black band.  Big deal!  It's only 6 months ago that I was on ORANGE!

If we allow our minds to go to these places where we let "one bad workout make us feel like the worst athlete that ever lived" we are destined to fail.  The mind or the mental game is by far the biggest aspect of what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

I decided after my run to just forget about it and move on.  If I never run again...oh darn *insert sarcasm*.  The point here is that the decision I made to keep plugging along and allow myself to have a crappy run gave me the permission to move ahead mentally and when I got a message from a friend to workout on Sunday morning, I was totally ready to dive right in because I wasn't festering on "being such a loser" the day before.  Bonus to all this was that I got to work out with a good friend and I got to share my new PR of a 65lb SNATCH with him. What good is a PR if you can't share it right?!  Just thankful that I was in a mental space to enjoy it!

Like success, failure is many things to many people.  With positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.  ~ W. Clement Stone

Keep putting one foot in front of the other my ShopGym friends :)

B