The title is not fake news. He really said it.

I've been struggling with personal training recently. I have seen decent gains on my upper-body strength, but my weight-loss and discipline have been very much lacking. I just wasn't feeling it. At the start of March, we moved to three days a week, which was supposed to get us in the gym more, focus more, and progress more. It didn't really work out.

March was a tough month. Work changes including a new associate director of our core, the passing of our grandpa rather quickly, four weeks straight of traveling on the weekends, and a general lack of motivation really added up. I gained close to ten pounds from mid-February to the start of April. Even if some of the weight was temporary, not good at all.

It came to the point at the start of April that I jokingly/not jokingly put in my two weeks during a training session. My heart wasn't in it, I was over it. I could easily justify to myself that I didn't want to spend the money, I didn't want to commit to busy weeknights and early morning sessions at the gym. Like I said, I was over it and had plenty of excuses for why I was over it.

After leaving that session, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my goals really are. We've signed up for the Boilermaker in July. I am in serious talks with my brothers about triathlons and am on the verge of throwing down the $100 registration + travel costs  to do one in June.

After a couple of days of mulling over what I wanted to do, it hit me that I will literally not succeed in these events if I don't commit to being healthier.

I don't enjoy weight training that much at all. Lifting doesn't achieve the same relaxation and release that long-distance running or biking offers me. But I finally realized that I don't need it to. The whole purpose behind training with Carley wasn't to achieve the peace of mind endurance training offers me. I started lifting to supplement my event-based fitness goals, not replace them. It was to get stronger, do better, and feel better post-event by building real strength. I lost sight of the whole reason I started lifting in the first place.

After talking with Carley on Tuesday night, I've signed back on for two nights a week, with the clear goal of maintaining and building my strength to succeed at the events that I am going to compete in. He offered up bagels and donuts as a pre-workout fuel, much to Ellie's absolute shock, horror, dismay, fury, and amusement. I assume his logic is that banning me from things I want taps into my fierce, counter-authority stubbornness, and hasn't been working. I appreciated the gesture, but right now I am going to pass up his offer. I've got real goals and I know what I need to do to accomplish them. Unfortunately donuts and bagels aren't on the path to success.