More importantly, where's my body at?
It has been about four weeks since the last day of school and I'm not exactly in the best shape: mentally and physically. Sure, the tragic and untimely death of a pet along with a two-week vacation filled with nearly 70 hours of driving has me just behind schedule in several areas of fitness.
It hasn't helped that upon my return from hiking in Colorado and biking in Chicago with my wife, I've had muscle soreness in my neck (ongoing), random 24-hour lower back pain, and a sore right wrist with possible muscle tendonitis. If that's not enough, I ripped up the skin across my right hand, exposing some bright pink flesh. Oh, and my right knee still barks a bit from an ill-advised New Jersey Marathon in May that saw me take nearly 5 hours. So... I've got that going for me.
With somewhat of a game plan together for the upcoming two months before the school year begins once again, I'm wondering which road I'm going to head down. Continue with weight lifting five-plus days-a-week and increasing muscle mass (and weight)? Commit myself to the lifestyle of CrossFit and corresponding meat-based Paleo diet? Push myself to recapture the glory of last summer/fall by training for and completing a 50-mile ultramarathon, sticking with vegetarianism - or turning to fruitarinism? - in the process? I don't know which to choose.
Due to the obvious scheduling conflicts of so many activities, each pathway detracts from another. Gaining muscle weight will undoubtedly slow down my run and possibly my ability to stay injury free. Losing weight to help with the weekend long runs will assuredly lead to some muscle atrophying when at the gym.
Perhaps I should just feel happy that I'm even able to do so much. I'd really prefer to excel in one area, but being pretty darn good in all three will feel quite nice, too... so long as the injuries from paragraph 3 continue to rear their nasty little heads.
