Different Venue, Same Results!

Doesn't look much like a trail run, does it?  This is an actual image (not me) from a cave that my son, Ryan, and I explored a few weekends ago. 

About a year ago, we did a caving expedition with the cub scout troop my son is in.  It was amazingly difficult and fun (for us anyway, about 25% of the dads dropped out after the first “belly crawl”) and Ryan has been asking me to take him back (just the 2 of us) for a year (he really loves this stuff and I do to, probably not quite as much as him as he is a 70 pound, strong and extremely flexible 10 year old and I am a fairly strong, 200 pound, not flexible at all 49 year old so most of the challenges, especially those crawling through small holes,  he is better than me at!)  I promised him we would do it for his 10^Th birthday (last August) and it has taken till now (January) to make it happen. Side note here of God’s wonderful intervention – we were talking about bringing a friend of mine and his son and were planning on going with them next weekend.  We both decided we could not wait that long and went yesterday, turns out it was so dangerous and challenging (my friend is a Radiologist and even less flexible that me, he would probably have dropped out or hated it and his son is athletic but tends to get really stressed out in challenging situations and pukes a lot – not a good mix in this cave).  Also, we had the luxury of it being just the 2 of us and the guide (which actually made me a little apprehensive at first) and next weekend, turns out, is their busiest weekend of the year so we would have been in a large group – the stars were aligned, as they say (really, God was rewarding me honoring my role as a father – to support my son in things like this that will help to make him a man – and make me a better man)!

Anyway, back to our trip.  We packed up and left Atlanta about 3pm to head for Tennessee (about a 2 hour drive) – I love driving anywhere with my son – it is awesome and very laid back – he has very little demands and we both sort of zone out into whatever we are doing – sometimes lots of conversation, sometimes none and all good.  We arrived about 1 hour early so we had a very light dinner (you cannot eat or drink anything the whole time you are in the cave and you don’t want to have to go to the bathroom) and headed to the cave site.  We met our guide, a very cool and laid back guy named “Matt” and headed into the cave.  Immediately we could tell this would be different than the cub scout trip, first of all in the pacing – without having to wait for 30 kids and dads, we could really rock this trip, not so fast that we missed anything but just the right pace.  Also, and he told us this, with 2 people in decent shape, he could take us off the “beaten path” into areas that none of the “normal people” go on. 

Without going into a huge amount of detail, cause that is not what this chapter is about, this ended up being one of the most challenging, and definitely most scary, 2 hours of my life – and I LOVED IT (Ryan loved it even more than me, if that was possible).  Notice I said 2 hours, we covered more area of the cave, much harder routes, in 2 hours and 15 minutes than we did in over 4 hours with the scouts!  This is no Disney ride where you are scared but you know how safe it is and that you are strapped in.  You are, literally, one step (and a very muddy, slippery step) away from falling into a crevasse and breaking a leg, at the very least!  You are leaning over and putting your body weight on your hands, with your feet on a small ledge, above a 30 foot drop into sharp rocks!  You are crawling through holes that touch you on all points of your body, I got stuck more than once and had to re-adjust to make it through.  To say this is exhilarating would be an understatement.  Now, before you go judging me as a reckless and uncaring dad, remember, my son is very, very capable – at some points he actually got ahead of the guide and we had to pull him back – and the guide was giving us instruction as needed.  He really is an amazing kid, very resilient and up for any challenge that comes his way, as he likes to say “LETS DO THIS THING”!  We had an ongoing joke that the guide would say, over and over, “ok, now comes the hard part” and we would laugh – didn’t he just say that 5 minutes ago?  Also, every time we would get to a crossroad, he would give us a choice, and Ryan would ask “which way is harder” and that was the way we would go!  What 10 year old does that?  I actually was talking to the guide about the book “The Road Less Traveled” and we both said Ryan has that concept down, which is a great thing, at least in these type of situations!  I am so proud of my boy!

Here is the “take away” from this weekend.  nothing except where to put my hands, how to make it through a squeeze, how to turn my body around and slide down a ledge and keeping my eye on Ryan if he needed my help (not much) and making sure we were both safe.  I didn’t think about work, about my marriage, about our business, about the current political situation, nothing but the moment.  It was absolutely amazing, similar to what I felt during my first triathlon but with the added danger factor and doing something totally out of my athletic “box”.  

Side note to self; try rock climbing and mountain climbing as new adventure soon!

After we were done, we both said that this was in the top 10 experiences of our lives!  Seriously. Big deal for a 10 year old but a really big deal for a 49 year old who had done a fair amount in his life!  We enjoyed the longest, best hot shower in recent memory and then tried to “sleep” in the cave.  In retrospect, this is one of  only  2 things I would change – wear a long sleeve t-shirt cause my arms got pretty trashed and either camp out if the weather is good, or get a hotel – sleeping on rock is just impossible for a 200lb man, even with a good mattress – you wake up every 20 minutes for the whole night!  The upside is that it makes you appreciate your home and bed so much more!

By the way, caving (like we did it) burns about 500 calories per hour and we ate hardly anything so we were starving, and I mean hand-shaking starving, this morning – amazing!

I am so peaceful today and thankful we are alive and safe.  I can take on anything this next week brings me.  God cleared my noisy brain again, and I am thankful for it!  The next time you are scared to do something physical, I hope you can remember this chapter and realize what is awaiting you on the other side of that challenge – peace.

God bless you all, 

Rami

Life Without Exercise?

Yep, that's me, Mr. Couch Potato!

As I mentioned in my last installment, I hurt my back doing a workout I really had no business doing (just goes to show you, even us "experts" make some major mistakes sometimes).  After my trip to Miami and my run with Ryan, it really was not getting any better.  I went to my Chiropractor / Applied Kinesiologist and had him take a look.  He diagnosed it and did some minor adjustments/trigger points and stretches.  I felt better immediately and, of course, proceeded to do a 40 minute trail run.  Felt fine after that and then did 90 minutes with buddies 2 days later.  Again, felt fine during and after the run.  Got up Sunday, went to the gym and did a very, very light bike spin, got down on the floor to stretch and when I went to get up, the pain came back, worst I have EVER felt!  It hurt so bad I left the mat and towel I was using on the floor cause I couldn't imagine bending down to get them. Had to have my family take my shoes off when I got home!  If you have been there, you know the feeling!

Now, just to give you some history, I have had back problems ever since I started doing triathlons (1992) but I have managed them pretty well with stretching, strengthening, etc. and recently, once I adopted regular foam roller use, my back has been as good as it has ever been.  I have had it "go out" many times over the past 20 years, 90% of the time when I am tapering for a race - inactivity is normally the worst thing for my back, but this was beyond anything I had ever felt. 

Went back to the Chiropractor, got some relief again and decided to take some time off running (per his instructions).  Still did some minor workouts however things just were not progressing.  We are now coming up on 3 weeks into this stupid thing!  Finally, I went in again last Monday and he suggested I take a complete week of from all types of exercise - yikes!  I found myself barginning, "what about yoga, swimming, maybe just stretching"?  He said, no, do nothing for a week and lets see what happens.

Wow, can this addict do it?  The pain was severe enough (1200mgs of Advil a day just to make it to work) that I was willing to try anything.  So, as of today, it has been 2 weeks since I have run and almost 1 week since I have done any other type of exercise!   Might not sound like a lot, but if you have been following my blog, you know that this is way, way "out of my box".........

What have I learned?

• This injury was the first one in my life that actually responded better to inactivity than light or modified activity.  I still feel, based on my 35 years of personal experience and 20 years of experience training clients that 95% of injuries do better with light activity than total rest, but when the pain is this bad, sometimes ya gotta just lay off - especially when you have been training as long and hard as I have!

• Total inactivity can actually be fun and relaxing for me, for about 2-3 days, then it just plain sucks.  At first, my energy levels soared, I slept well and felt very calm and peaceful (a very strong sign my body needed the downtime).  After about 3 days, the lethargy and malaise set in - I cannot imagine how anyone can live like this!

• My spiritual life is really helping my chronic anxiety!  Normally, I need morning exercise like an addict needs their "fix" to calm me down and help me face the day peacefully.  During this process, my mood has been fine and anxiety very low, even with no exercise at all:  PRAISE GOD!!!!!

• The quality of my diet is directly coorelated with how much I am training.  When I don't train, my diet just plain sucks - kind of like having a race car that just sits in the garage (ok, maybe I am not a race car, but how about a really fast VW bug?) - why bother spending any money on expensive, high quality gas for it.  Cookies and ice cream are my new best friend.  Not totally out of control so I have kept my weight gain to about 3lbs, mostly water weight (I pray).

• I really enjoy running and miss it (this was not a revelation at all, just a nice affirmation).  I don't miss weight training as much (more miss the feeling after a really tough weight training workout than the process itself) but I really cannot wait to get back out on those trails!

• There is a lot more time in your day when you don't train, however, since I am not as sharp or motivated, the extra time I have really does not add up to any more productivity or quality time with my friends and family - another fact I already knew and preach all the time but good to see in action in the first person.

• Health is a complete blessing that we should never, ever take for granted.  I have always felt this way but times like this just push that point home even stronger!

The good news is that my back is feeling much, much better  - my plan for now is to do a light hike or 2 with the kids this weekend and then ease back into my program next week, minus the cookies and ice cream (well, maybe minus those after Christmas)....

Please stay tuned and thanks for reading,

Have a blessed holiday season and Merry Christmas to all!

Rami

"Burn out and Barfing".....

Cannot believe it has been almost 2 months since I have "blogged".......time flies!  Just to start off with some exciting, and scary, news....I have sent a few chapters of my book to an editor!  Now I wait to see if this thing is actually publishable or just better off the online ramblings of a new Catholic, ultra running,  crazy man :-)  Stay tuned......

Anyway, have not written a lot because I "hit the wall", "burnt out", "lost motivation", "over trained" - you name the term, I did it.

After I finished the 53 miler in March, I almost immediately decided to do my first 100 miler in November of this year.  I put together a training program and then, LIFE HAPPENED, and I decided it was just not the year to do it.  So, I trained with a couple of buddies who were training for the Lake Tahoe 50 miler (they both finished, kudos to both of them, 50 miles at altitude - nice!) and then decided to really kick ass in the Mystery Mountain Marathon in October that has kicked my ass every year.  Well, what this messed up and non-directional training schedule did was not give me any real recovery time (mostly what I needed was mental, not physical) after the 53 miler and had me doing long training all through the summer - my least favorite time of year to train.  About a month before the race I did a really strong training weekend on the course and felt awesome on the 2nd day (looking back, this is what happens to me a lot when I over train, the candle burns brightest......) and after that, I lost ALL motivation.  About 3 weeks before the race, after all of my training, I decided to drop down to the 12 mile option, and felt totally fine about it!

Ended up being a great decision, it was a blast to actually "run" the whole race as opposed to fast walking the hills and suffering for 6 hours (funny story, we broke down about 3 miles from the race and had to hitch a ride to the start - got to the starting line at 7:52am for 8am start, doing the 12 I was fine but if I was stressing about prepping for a full on assault at the marathon distance, I would have been FREAKING OUT)!  We make plans and God laughs.

After that, I actually stopped logging my training and decided to just "free flow" until the bug hits me again (it's already starting, BTW, so my recovery is working).  Doing sporadic runs, no trail runs over 60 minutes and starting to do some "CrossFit Endurance" workouts to get ready for Pinhoti 2012 (yep, I was able to transfer my entry so, unless life gets in the way big time again, I am hitting that starting line, and, God willing, finish line in November of next year)!

OK, so that is the "burn out" part, now, what am I talking about with "barfing"????  Suffice it to say, sometimes I am not a very good Dad......let me explain - mistakes (lessons) in bold!  A good buddy of mine lives down in Miami and does triathlon coaching and sports marketing and he told me about a trail race that was happening over the Thanksgiving weekend and, guess what, we were going down for the holiday to see family - perfect!  Ryan (my son) and I had been talking about him doing his first trail race (a 10k) on 12/3 here in Georgia and this race had a 5k option so I thought that might be a better idea (in hindsight, I am so glad we didn't sign up for the 10k)!  We had about 3 weeks to train for it, but Ryan is in good shape and how hard can a trail race in Miami be (its dead flat, after all)??- MISTAKE (LESSON) NUMBER ONE:  Because they don't have hills, they designed a mountain bike trail that was so technical, it was like an obstacle course!  Add to this, in typical trail running fashion, the distance was 5k "ish", more like 4 miles - the "5k" winner went 28 minutes, the "10k" winner went 51 min!  So, we were both severely under trained.  Add to that, Ryan had been sick and I hurt my back (worst ever in my life, could hardly walk) in a workout I had no business doing.  My wife commented "Ryan is sick and won't tell you and you can hardly walk and you won't tell him, you both don't want to disappoint each other by not doing the race - men!!!!"  I won't count this a mistake, more of a severe character flaw I have and seem to have passed on to my son that is not gonna change :-)


So, we get up at 6am on Sunday for a 7:30am start - all good.  I give Ryan a banana and a G2 on the way - MISTAKE (LESSON) NUMBER 2: Ryan was not feeling good and does not have my digestive system, next time just sip on water and G2 and if he gets hungry give a gel during the race!  


We arrived a bit late and didn't have time to warm up, but that should not have been a problem.  Now, digress a bit here before we move on to Lesson number 3 - when Ry and I train together, he normally asks to go out front cause I run "too fast" when I lead - then he immediately picks up the pace to a drop dead sprint!  I coached him many times that the race would begin fast and to run his own pace - MISTAKE (LESSON) NUMBER 3: Don't let a 10 year old set the beginning pace of a race!uppy feeling"....."Dad, can we walk a bit"???? Uh-Oh.

Mile 1.5, we pull off the trail and he pukes his brains out (too add insult to injury, there was absolutely no privacy on this trail so everyone we went out ahead of in the beginning passed right by us and saw him puking!).  I am feeling like a pretty bad Dad now and wondering how I am going to carry this boy back to the start, remember, my back is hurting so bad I can hardly run!  Miraculously, he recovered a bit, walked about 1/2 mile and then started running again (when we got to the 2 mile rest stop and the guy told me we had at least 2 miles to go, I made sure he didn't hear it!) At one point he said, "Dad, you have said we are almost there a few times, I don't think I believe you anymore" - smart boy.

Gotta tell you, as many "lessons" as we experienced that morning, I have rarely been so proud of my boy finishing that race!  I told him it took my years to figure out nutrition and pacing, and I STILL make mistakes so not to worry about it.  He didn't and felt really good about himself, good enough to ask to get Pizza at 9am and is ready to sign up for another race!!!!

God was with us the whole time, teaching us, guiding us, protecting us and we are listening - thank you so much for the lessons!


Remember, no matter how you feel, we are all truly blessed - when you can be thankful for your life every day, even when things seem to suck, you have found true happiness!

In Christ,

Rami

The Power of 15 Minutes!

This may seem very strange, given the subject lines of most of my blogs (finding spiritual connections through long distance trail running), however, I am going to write about how powerful only 15 minutes of exercise can be (if done correctly).

First, a quick warning, this type of training (it goes by many names: interval training, speed work, HITT, track work etc) is not for beginners.  Also, make sure you are properly warmed up before you do this (so, the actual workout time is probably closer to 25 minutes if you are doing it by itself, but only 15 if you are doing it right after a weight training workout or boot camp class - the BEST time do this, btw)!  Also, this is best done when well hydrated, on an empty stomach.

Anyway, there is enough detail to keep you busy for weeks in books, blogs, etc. on different types of interval workouts, so instead of giving you 20 different workouts, I will try to motivate you just to try this using a little math.  If you did 15 minutes of high intensity intervals 3x per week, after your weight training workouts you would burn, conservatively, 150 more calories per workout, plus 50 or so (depending on what study you read) more during the day after the workout.  This adds up to 600 calories a week for just 45 minutes of extra time.    Keep this up for a year and (keeping your diet consistent) this could add up to 9lbs of stubborn body fat GONE from your body!  Do I have your attention yet?

Here is a very simple workout I have done with a couple of FormWell members this week (btw, if I had a $1.00 for every time a member said - "I don't have time to stay after my workout to do more cardio" and then stayed around for 20 minutes, talking to their trainer or friends, I could retire and write this blog full time ;-) - you have the time!

1. If you are doing this after a workout, no need to do any extra warm up, just do 2 minutes of easy walking to get yourself into the "flow" of the treadmill (this can be done on any piece of cardio equipment and also outside, of course).
2. Run, preferably at an incline, at a pace that you can barely maintain for 90-120 seconds for 2 minutes.  Finding this "uncomfortable place" may take some trial and error, but basically the feeling I am looking for is that after 60 seconds or so, you cannot wait till the 2 minutes are up.  You are breathing very hard, and can answer questions with a quick yes, no or inaudible grunt!
3. Walk, VERY EASY, for 1-3 minutes, or until you feel totally recovered.
4. Repeat this 5x
5. Walk 2-5 minutes for a cool down and stretch.

Enjoy the after glow.  Repeat 2-3x per week for maximum results. 

Have fun, if you are hating me during the 2 minute intervals, you are doing it right!

Blessings,

Ram

What does a Trail Run Look Like?

One of the things that almost everyone encounters when they first run on the trails, especially in the mountains, is how different it is from road running, especially regarding the pacing.    It try to explain to people that this is not like running on the roads at an 8 minute pace for 5 hours with no breaks.  It is more like a really fast hike, with lots of breaks and fast walking the hills!  This makes it much more attainable and understandable for people who have never done it.  I cannot imagine pounding my body for hours on the road, exposed, traffic, boring, hot, etc. but hours in the woods feels like fun, adventure, unplanned excitement to me!  Let me give you a good example of what this past weekends' “run” looked like: 

I ran with a small group,  we are all training for a 30k or 50k in November on the trails we would be running this day. The run started at a really nice little park in North Georgia ( http://www.gastateparks.org/Vogel-Hiking) at 8am.  I got up there around 7:30am to warm up and take care of business before others showed up.   

The 9 of us got started at about 8:15am for what was predicted (by Robert, the cruel man who designed this course and is the Race Director for this race) to be a 3 – 3.5 hour run of about 15 miles.  It ended up being 16 miles with 10,000 feet of elevation change and took me 4:15 – and I was the 3^rd person done (really the 2^nd as one person who beat me back got lost and cut out part of the course)!  Here is how the course laid out: 

- Uphill for about a mile right out of the parking lot, not tough but not too easy either - very nice trail and great scenery, very cool morning and everyone started out way too fast in this section, trying to run hills they really had no business running!

- Then a long, steady, very fun downhill for 2”ish” miles. I stayed in the back here cause I LOVE downhills and knew this would be a long day if I trashed my Quads 3 miles into the run!

- At 3.5 miles we hit the low point of the course, 2100 feet    For the next 4 miles we climbed, almost the whole time, up to 4200 feet!  Do the math, this equates to about a 10% average incline.  Probably “fast hiked” 90% of this section!  


- Then, for added cruelty, we dropped (no switchbacks) almost straight down for about .5 - 1 mile to where the RD had stashed water, Gatorade and treats (BTW, I saw a guy I know from other runs coming down this hill fully decked out in overnight attire carrying 2 full gallons of water, found out later he was out on a 24 hour run, if my wife is reading this, realize I could be a lot, lot worse and probably am headed that way, but not yet :-).  Took me about 2 hours and 15 minutes to get here.      You get the picture here, over 2 hours to do 8 miles, no 7 minute mile pace on this trip!   

-  After too long of a break, I couldn't wait any longer and headed back the same way by myself (yep, a 4 mile downhill – thank God I do lots of functional leg training that strengthens my Quads and ankles)! 

Total time running, about 4 hours 15 minutes (I know, sounds slow as s$$$ but look at the website for this trail and it says average time for 12 miles - we added 4 - is 9 hours so not too shabby).  Amazing trail, amazing scenery, cool new people met, ran 2:15 with people and 2 hours completely solo (interesting with no i-pod, ended up singing to myself to scare away bears and to pass the time on the downhills - realize I don't know all the words to many songs and seem to gravitate towards "Desparado" and "Turn the Page" a lot ;-) and felt fantastic afterwards.  No real mental or spiritual epiphanies on this trip, just wanted to share what a long trail “run” looks like, at least for me (I am sure there are a few studs out there that would run this whole thing, but not many)!  So, join me on my next one, don’t think of it as a run, think of a fun day hiking, jogging, meeting new friends in God’s amazing creation of nature!

Until next time, God bless you all and thanks for reading! 

9/19/11

Running and Camping, what a mix!

It's been a while!  


After I finished my last blog, I started working on finishing my book and, well, suffice to say that editing is no where near as fun as writing the damn thing so I have been at a bit of a standstill with my writing.  Plus, I haven't had any races this summer and I have done a lot of training in groups, which is fun but does not inspire a whole lot of exciting prose from this brain!


That changed last weekend - I decided to do a training weekend at the marathon course I will be running on 10/9/11.  I have run this course "The Mystery Mountain Marathon" 3 times, the first time as the 12 mile option and 2 more times as the full marathon.  All 3 times have inspired chapters in my book, mostly because of the difficulty and beauty of this course and what finishing this thing brings out of my physically, emotionally and spiritually!   The RD (Race Director or, as she likes to be called: MFO: "Most Wonderful One") set up a training weekend where you basically did the "easy" first 12 miles on Saturday, camped out and then did the "not so easy" 16 miles Sunday (I know, this adds up to more than 26.2 miles but that is the way us Ultra people roll).  


I headed up Saturday around lunchtime as the run started at 2pm.  Yes, 2pm in August and we would be running about 3 hours.  Needless to say, I was not looking forward to this - luckily we were blessed as Hurricane Irene brought in some cooler temps and lower humidity so even though it was 92degrees, it was not nearly as bad as it could have been.  We really took it easy and it still beat me down pretty badly, I am just NOT a heat runner.  We finished in just under 3 hours which may sound really slow, well, it was really slow, however, this course has 15,000 feet of elevation change over 26 (28?) miles - basically we go up and down a 2600 foot mountain 6 times!  Not for the faint of heart, especially the downhills!  


After we were done we set up camp, had an "adult beverage" or 2 and headed into the local town for Mexican food (I know, what kind of camping trip is this?) - it was really fun and great to break bread with 15 others who completely understand why I do this stuff - I think the coolest part of the evening was my buddy that I brought with me noting that he had "never seen such a happy group of people, you are all high on endorphins 24/7" .....which is so true.


After dinner we had a nice fire, made "smores", had a few more "adult beverages" and hit the sack around 10pm.  I did not sleep well at all, not sure why, and ended up waking up at 6am after about 2 hours sleep wondering how the heck I was going to complete 4 hours of running on the hardest section of the course!  Also, this section has a 3.5-4mile uphill section (that falls from mile 18-22 in the marathon) that has kicked my butt in previous years so I really wanted to "show it who was boss" this day, mostly to build confidence for the race.


Long story short, somehow I had one of the best runs I have had in months.  I felt strong all day, finished 16 miles in 3:45 and could have kept running!  I am convinced it had to do with the awesome high fat meal I had the night before:  chicken, avocado, onions and something called "Mexican Sausage" - I know, this was a risk but call me a wild man, I like to live on the edge! Met some great people, learned how to rely on others for directions, learned that ultra runners make great after race treats (one guy brought homemade cannoli's, are you kidding me?), learned (once again) that I enjoy training with others but I really LOVE the solitude of training on my own and having my own schedule, agenda, pacing, etc.  Next year I will go up Friday night and camp out solo - do the run early Saturday AM and really relax on Saturday instead of rushing around like we did this time.


To end on a scary and then good note, when we were heading back to camp to break down our site, a family that camped with us was heading out and said they had just chased a baby bear OUT OF THEIR TENT!  Could have been a bad scene if momma was around but all ended well.  


Ate about 2000 calories on the way home and my quads were sore for a week, can't wait to do it again!


Till next time, 


God Bless you all,


Ram

Don't Push That Snooze Button!

My alarm goes off during the week (and most Saturdays) at 4:30am.  Which is really 4:20am because I do that crazy thing of setting my clock ahead by 10 minutes to "trick" myself into getting up on time when I hit the snooze which on my clock is 7 minutes.  I know, strange and very complicated but it works for me.  Anyway, this blog is not about my alarm but about NOT SLEEPING THROUGH PLANNED WORKOUTS!  You all have to trust me on this, as much as I love working out, running and my job - when the alarm goes off at 4:30 (really 4:20) I am not always jumping out of bed, happy and excited to start my day!  As my wife will attest to, I normally hit the snooze at least 1x and then drag my sleepy butt out of bed to fall around my bedroom in the dark (cause I don't want to wake her up) trying to find my clothes and get going.  


Doesn't sound very motivating so far, does it?  My point of this blog is this:  I have NEVER regretted getting up once I start my workout!  However, there have been many, many times I have told myself:  "you need to sleep more" or "go ahead, take the day off" or, "I will do my workout later today, or double tomorrow", etc. ad infinitum and  I will tell you, 99% of the time, I DO REGRET going back to sleep!


So, without making this a lengthy explanation, lets go back to the math as I always do:

• 100% of the time I am happy and feel wonderful when I drag myself out of bed and workout!

• 99% of the time when I blow it off I feel physically and psychologically worse than if I worked out!

How do you feel when you blow off your workout?  Every once in a while it is the right thing to do, but even on those days, just plan on doing a shorter or easier workout - I promise you won't regret it!


Blessings,


Rami.