Mitigating Damage

To be honest, I didn’t have a very good week last week. I know I’m supposed to be focusing on the positive/improvements, but last week was more about mitigating damage and minimizing how far I slipped back than it was about moving forward. I was still overwhelmed by work stress to the point that I had a full-blown panic attack on Monday night. I still made it to work on Tuesday and did what I needed to do, but indulged in a second beer and pizza night in a week’s time to try and get enough quick-and-easy pleasure hormones going to normalize my brain after the panic attack. I know that it wasn’t the best solution, but it was the best that I could come up at the time.

It got me through the rest of the week, and I was able to catch up on everything that I needed to do. I even got back onto the workout track on Wednesday night, even though the stress and food choices left me exhausted and my digestion wrecked. I was still a mess when the weekend came, and the disappointment of another weekend of no mountain biking due to three inches of snow after a nice two-week thaw did not help any. Even though it felt hard, and the weekend didn’t feel like much of a reward after such a tough week, I still managed to get a lot of sleep, eat well, and get in two good rides on the road.

It made my body feel a lot better, even if I’m still feeling awfully tender emotionally (and not in a nice way). I’m getting a massage after work today and taking another vacation day on Wednesday (fingers crossed for some clear trails). I’m really hoping that I can turn things around quickly and be back to feeling as good as I was couple of weeks so that I can start reporting some improvements again in the near future.

Although I didn't improve much in the big picture, I did PR two climbs on Strava this weekend. I guess that is something.