Thursday, October 30, 2014

Finding motivation and Beating the Blerch

I was on a high coming off of the triathlon season. I know this happens to many, if not most athletes once the season is finished, but for some reason I thought I would be different. Though I am still training for a couple half marathons in 2-3 weeks, I miss tri training! Its not like I can't do it... I'm just not motivated to do so. My next tri is at least 6 months away, its getting cold outside, its constantly DARK (like, does the sun every come up around here?)... UGH!

You know what its time for?

BEAT THE BLERCH.

You heard me. BEAT THE BLERCH.

Before we get all confused and you start googling "Blerches", let met backtrack for a sec. This past weekend, my parents threw me a "you-survived-your-first-ironman-and-by-the-way-lets-celebrate-your-thirtieth-birthday-because-you-were-too-busy-training-for-said-ironman-to-celebrate-it-yourself-and-remember-when-you-loved-my-little-ponies-thats-the-theme-because-you-are-still-our-baby-girl".

To this I say: I love my family.

My party was awesome. My mom purchased a "costume" for me, to which I proudly wore all night long and consisted of a child's My Little Pony tshirt and rainbow striped tights with a denim skirt that I dug out of the drawer. It was all very special. I had an MLP cake with the IM logo on its butt with matching IM cookies in hot pink and lime green (the colors of the shirts my parents made for my cheering group). It really was awesome and super thoughtful. All my IL relatives came, our family friends, and to top it off? My best friend flew in AS A SURPRISE and showed up at my parents front door Saturday morning. Needless to say, I was shocked and surprised... and I cried. It was that cry that happens when you are overwhelmed by too many emotions and it takes a few seconds to sink in. The last time that happened was about 10 minutes after I crossed the finish line at Wisconsin and saw my family for the first time.





That was my party.

Anyway, back to the Blerch.

There is a hilarious Oatmeal comic called, "The terrible and wonderful reasons why I run long distances". First of all, I love the Oatmeal. I think I've read almost all of the comics, I even own the cat and dog comic books. When I found out the author was publishing a book based on the above titled comic, I was thrilled. I was waiting for it to come out for weeks... then I forgot about it because I never pre-ordered it and I hit the post-IM slump.

Dayle and I love the Blerch. Its our motivation for when we want to sit on the couch and slack off. The Blerch is descibed as a fat little cherub that follows the author as he runs. He is the ultimate Un-Motivator. He tells you to be lazy, to pig out, to quit. So, its up to you and you alone to beat the Blerch.

Read about the Blerch here: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running

When my BF visited this weekend, she was finally able to give me my birthday present. She nailed it completely. NAILED IT.


I started reading the rest of the comic/book this morning after a particularly "Blerch-y" night last night. I meant to set up my bike on the trainer after work. Instead, I gorged on leftover pizza and savory white chedder and caramel mixed popcorn and leftover IM cookies while watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix. I woke up this morning, read some of the book, and I decided that was my last big night of binge eating. You have to start over somewhere, right? I have been running 3x a week and lifting at least 1-2x a week, but its not nearly what I was doing pre-IM. I understand my body needed a break. But you can't qualify for Kona sitting on your butt eating. And Blerching.

So here's to Beating the Blerch, one day at a time!

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