Surround yourself.

For those of us who work at schools, today is official “back to normal day”.  For us at AU, that means being swamped with student phone calls, campus visits and not being able to find a good parking spot.  Gotta love the business of a college campus, wouldn’t change it for anything.  No, not even a good parking spot.  This week also kicks off insanity for me as I have a full training schedule at the studio and weekend grad school classes begin, YEESH!  So, I tried to take as much time this weekend to get organized and get geared up for the next few months.

Since I came down with some version of the flu last week, this weekend I also had my first couple  workouts back after a few days off.  I think I may have overdone it, because now my body feels like a big pile-O- jello.  But it’s all good because jello= hard muscles.  What, you didn’t learn that in 5th grade science? Weak.  Anywho, it is in the winter months that I truly recognize the importance of having friends to exercise with.   I have an amazing group of people that I run with 2-3 days a week in the early mornings and if it were not for them (and my dog) I certainly would hit the snooze button more often.  The funny thing is, I LOVE the mornings, like so much.  Seeing a sunrise literally makes my day, I feel like it is God’s way of saying “Good Morning Jill, go seize the day!”.  However, the winter months are a bit of a struggle for me so I really depend on my fitness buddies to keep me on track.

Oswego Sunrise

On Sunday for example I had made plans to run maybe an easy 6 miles.  So I got up to meet my friends Jess and Justin and turns out they wanted to do 10 miles.  Blast.  Of course I couldn’t be a wimp and say “but, I only wanted to do 6!”.  So 10 miles  we did.  See?  Make friends that want to work out, run, lift, do yoga, etc. and it makes accountability SO much easier.  On the days I am not running at 530am I am spending that time with my amazing Crossfit family and MAN are they an awesome group.  We are all suckers for pain and have a blast, even during the most ridiculous workouts.   This morning was a CF member’s 50th Birthday, so in her honor we did 50 reps each of box jumps, pullups, KB swings, KTES, push-press, supermans, burpees & double unders.  Do you think I would ever in my right mind do that by myself?  H*LL NO.  Happy 50th Birthday SUE!

My point is, I love to workout.  It brings me so much joy, so much new friendship and the empowerment that I can do anything.  But, even I struggle in the cold & dark months.  So my biggest advice to you is find a buddy, a group, a class, doesn’t matter what.  Just surround yourself with people going after the same goal.  Not to just avoid becoming a fatty in the winter, but the lifelong goal to be healthy, active and ALIVE 🙂

My awesome running group at the Great Western 1/2 Marathon last year