Half-way there...
So it’s been about five weeks now that I’ve been working out with a trainer, and I think I’m about half way to being done. By that I mean that I’m going to give it about another five or six weeks and if I’m not any more satisfied with the process, I think I’m going to give it up and just go back to running and not lifting.
When I go running, I feel better when I’m done -- great even. I’m tired, sure. I’m worn out. But it’s a “good” worn out. When I get done lifting I invariably feel like shit. Whatever part of my body I was working on that day doesn’t work right, and I generally feel like shit for the rest of the day. Worse yet, one day of lifting costs me two days of running. Sure, I run a ten minute warm up and cool down when I lift, but that’s very different from grinding out an hour of cardio, so it costs me a day of running on the day I actually lift. Then, the next day after lifting, I usually still don’t feel “right” to run. If I push through and run anyway the day after lifting, I always seem to pay for it by being unable to run the day after that. So really, any way I seem to slice it, a day of lifting costs me two days of running.
Since I started lifting, I’ve put on weight, and my running speed has been pretty much in the shitter. I feel like I’m carrying more weight in general, and I always feel like I’m retaining water for three or four days after lifting (which various sources tell me I actually am.) Now, the trainer warned me, and I knew on my own going in, that I was probably going to have to break a few eggs to make an omelette -- that my performance might dip before it picked up, in other words, “no pain, no gain.” And that’s why I’m saying I’m “half-way” done with this. I’m not giving up yet.
Honestly, I don’t want to sound like a quitter, but if I can’t find a way to make lifting either more intrinsically fun, less intrinsically sucky, or more results-providing in the areas I’m interested in (running speed, running endurance, body composition) over a ten to twelve week period, and at appreciable personal expense, I just don’t see how it’s a net win over the running plateau I was on that led me to do this in the first place.
Blah.