I've found myself in a post-triathlon slump. After a day off initially, I stayed pretty active for a week. And then last week hit. I barely scraped by to salvage my chain-game and keep it going.

Last October, I took a month off after our first half marathon. Once I got back into working out in November, I vowed to myself that I would never go a full month without working out after a race again. It was too hard to get back into the groove, to force myself to get going again. Once I achieved a "new normal," one that was filled with watching ESPN or whatever garbage was on television, it was hard to reverse course. It  explains why establishing yourself in the first place is so difficult, and why so many people fail before ever getting going.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running

Gotta beat the blerch
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running

Knowing all of that, I have a weird mix of emotions now. After training pretty much five to six days a week since March (a half marathon, the Boilermaker, and a triathlon since then), I think mentally I needed this week off. Last night, after the fourth or fifth episode of Hell's Kitchen on Hulu, I was going mental. I had a ridiculous amount of energy that was being channeled in probably pretty annoying ways. A short run was desperately needed. So we slapped on our Vibrams, grabbed the dog, and out we went.

Just a short 20 minute jog with Ellie and Audrey was all I needed to get my head on straight. I realized that the amount of stress that I can blow off and the extra energy that I can burn off makes me so much more calm and collected. The developmental-genomics paper I had to get through for class, which was beating me down, quickly became much clearer and made way more sense when I sat down to it again.

I've talked about it many times before, but each and every time I have a break from working out and the stress of life returns, it amazes me how quickly a little bit of exercise makes so much of it better.

I think I'll be getting back to my regularly scheduled program of at least four nights a week working out. Sorry, Hell's Kitchen, gotta take down the Blerch.