What went wrong

OK, so this post title has 2 meanings...

First, I was thinking about the whole changing my blog title and 1) I can't come up with a name I like and 2) I dont want to change the URL b/c I don't want it to get lost on any lists I'm already on.  So... for now, Exercise ADD is stuck, but maybe in the future, I will post a much longer and more gradual change.

Second, I wanted to talk about what happened over the summer after my stress fracture.  See this post for the explanation of the injury. Even though I was injured, I could still do low impact cardio like cycling or swimming (which isn't easy in NYC unfortunately).  I decided to do cycling at the gym (one day I'll tell you all why I won't ride a bike outdoors, but thats a story for another day).  I went to the gym a couple times a week to cycle, and also did crunches most of the time when I was there.

Occasionally, if Cameron went to the gym, I would go with him to the weight room.  I made a vague attempt to gain muscle, but as I have a fear of the weight room, I had a very hard time going on my own.  This fear stems from feeling like I don't know what I'm doing in the weight room and I don't like to have trainers/staff help me, but I don't want to look like a moron.

As a result, I would really only go with Cameron, or I'd go in by myself, do 3 machines Cameron had shown me (probably in the wrong order or on the wrong day) and then sprint out of there.

Then September hit and I started going to NJ a lot to deal with wedding related things.  Which meant fitting in gym time was harder and harder, but I was able to go once or twice a week.  And then about 2 weeks before the wedding, I got a cold, and then threw my hands up in the air and essentially said, "SCREW YOU" to exercise.

I also had this issue where I really missed running as soon as I was booted.  I was very surprised the first time I said to myself, "Today is a great day for running, I can't believe I can't!" I also was a lot more stressed out, on edge and generally crankier.  Yes, there was wedding stress, but I had this itchy feeling like I didn't have an outlet for it.

What I realized is that running outside felt different than other forms of exercise for me.  The big thing was that I was disconnected from my life, but connected to the rest of the world.  I'm not coordinated enough to ever check my phone while running, which means text messages, facebook, emails and phone calls have to wait.  BUT, I'm outside with all these other people, observing how other people exercise, what other people wear, and looking into other people's lives. I can't zone out and watch TV like I can on a bike, but I listen to pandora and get lots of new songs and keep myself current.

Also, and this will sound very bizarre... I missed hating running.  Yup, thats right.  I spent a lot of energy during my runs saying, "f*** you hudson river" or "if only I could run as fast as that guy, I'd be done running by now" which got out a lot of my stress and anger towards other things in my life.

The first few weeks without running were really tough.  I felt very un-regulated and like I wasn't sure how to de-stress.  I tried napping, which I've done in the past, and it's generally unsuccessful.  I tried the bike at the gym, but I felt so un-isolated, that I couldn't process my own thoughts. In the end, I just had to do the best I could and try to get by without.

A few weeks into being booted, I didn't miss running so much anymore, but I did start to obsess over how much I had probably lost throughout all this, and I started to get discouraged.  I worked so hard to be able to run 4 miles, and now I probably lost it all.  It was very easy to let my mind think about what went wrong, and not how things will be in the future.  Also, my diet went downhill.  Not that I have the best diet to begin with, but I was starting to eat lunch consistently, and I was starting to have healthier snacks.  Pfft, that went out the window very quickly.

Now that my foot is better again, I'm starting really slowly.  I realized that jumping into it too quickly set me so far back.  I'd rather do very short runs for a little bit and gradually build up my speed and distance.  I'm not training for the Olympics, so why take the risk??

How do you feel when you can't do your favorite form of exercise?  What is your favorite form of exercise?