A Day in the Life of the Seriously Unmotivated

 

by Darian McIntosh

 

10:00 AM – 

Got my Covid shot and stopped at the park with my daughter where I am currently relaxing underneath the shade of a weeping willow. I am feeling motivated to get started on my journey.

 

3:30 PM – 

Now we are home and it is a sweltering 109 degrees Fahrenheit. In Canada. Where I live. Our Central A/C is having a hard time keeping up. Canada does not have a reputation for needing to use a word like sweltering to describe it, even in the summer months.  For the last few weeks, I have been feeling like my role in the blogosphere of marathon runners is to possibly write an uplifting story of the underdog. Who doesn’t love a good underdog story? I sure do. Perhaps it holds particular importance for me because I am the underdog. I just need the win to prove it. But this record-breaking heatwave we are experiencing is very unmotivating and an easy excuse to do nothing.

 

Also, due to my 2nd dose of the Covid vaccination I received, I am experiencing an extraordinarily sore arm; so much so that it hurts to write this. And no, I am not proud of my complaining ways but ouch! The fatigue I feel could be a factor of many things…could it be the shot, the heat or just the simple fact that I seriously need to get my rear in gear? It is probably a mixture of all three but I’m guessing it is 80% of the latter.

 

So how does someone, who is feeling seriously unmotivated given the circumstances, travel down the road to health and fitness when she has nobody in her community that she knows with similar goals. Even if you cater to the more introverted side of the personality scales, I firmly believe in the battle buddy concept. I don’t believe that we can overcome extraordinary circumstances fully alone. There is always someone behind the scenes. In the small community I live in, I have very few friends here. It was one thing to write about my past personal experiences in the marathon world or to write about other’s stories of inspiration but what else could I have to offer to a platform of people who are motivated to push their body’s to the limit. I’ll be honest here and tell you that I don’t believe it is just my set of circumstances that are the problem either. I could make the best of excuses even if the circumstances were primed for ease of execution. 

 

6:00 PM –

I just got back from picking up sushi for dinner. It was during my short car ride that the realization that I am not ok hit me. The vaccination’s effects are more than just a sore arm and a little body fatigue. I am now feeling feverish with A LOT of body fatigue – full blown flu-like symptoms. I don’t have access to any thermometers in the house due to my 4-year-old’s drawer-raiding antics, so I will just have to go by instinct. I ate as much of the sushi as my body would allow but my eager hubby was more than happy to take over the task and finish the extras.

 

8:00 PM

I tried to lay down for a little while. I am not sure if I had what you might call an epiphany during this time but my brain’s activity waves went into a fever pitch (literally). In my dreams, I was flying over the clouds after having been on the ground and face to face with my demons. Being on the ground made me feel hopeless but flying in the clouds made me feel free.

 

I didn’t get much continuous sleep due to the fever but when I woke up, I had an immediate conclusion to what my dreams must have meant. The demons were representative of my problems and when I was face to face with them, I could not see a way out. I was too close to them. When I was flying over the clouds, my vantage point was much more vast and I could soak it all in to come up with better solutions. 

 

Having been in the military, I had opportunities to do activities that were high above the ground. In particular, when I did helo-casting (where you are left dangling by a rope underneath a flying helicopter), once I got past that initial fear, I felt so at peace up in the air. You truly get to see a new perspective of the world when you are that high up and a new appreciation sets in.

 

The Next Day  

8:00 AM

Ironic that my dreams made me feel like I could do anything with just a little perspective because here I am, the morning after my Covid shot and I am that much more unmotivated. I feel HORRIBLE.

 

Before I felt the vaccination’s ill effects yesterday, I had a point to make which was this: I look to the wisdom of motivated individuals to help answer the aforementioned question of “How do you stay motivated when you are constantly feeling the opposite?”  But not just any motivated individuals. I look to the wisdom of people that have overcome insurmountable odds. Because sometimes that is what it feels like. That the odds I will do anything about my health are insurmountable. Not because I have been dealt a particularly bad hand in life. It is just that I am so good at looking at molehills and making them into mountains.

 

Since I recently wrote about one such individual, Jay Hewitt, who completed an Ironman with terminal cancer, all in the name of his daughter, I looked at a quote of his that I wrote down because I liked it.

 

“You need people around you to pick you up.” -Jay Hewitt

 

This particular concept is not always easy for me. I tend to be awkward at meeting new people and am often not the one to approach others. But I see the merit in this concept, especially just after depending on my husband to care for our daughter’s needs all night and through this morning while I still feel very sick. I fell asleep on the couch after moving here at 6 AM because my daughter came into our room and tried to steamroll over my very sore body. She has now taken it upon herself to care for me by covering me in blankets and stuffed animals while I am feverish and passed out. And bonus, there are pictures to prove it. It is already 87 degrees out. She means well.

 

11:30 AM – 

I took some ibuprofen a little bit ago because my husband is due to go to work and I realized my free ride is almost over. We have a water park in our small little town that is only open from May to October (we actually do get snow here). Before you get too excited, it doesn’t have amazing water slides or anything of the like. It is literally located next to the regular park and it has a few little spouts that you can turn on and run through. Given this heatwave we are currently experiencing, I am not knocking it. The kids love it and so do I. I am thinking I will have to take her there. But first, a short nap might be in order.

 

4:00 PM – 

Ok so maybe a long nap was in order. We are here at the water park. There are surprisingly few kids here. I realize that dinnertime is not too far away but given that the thermostat is still reading at 106 degrees, I thought there would be more kids here trying to cool down. 

 

4:35 PM –

Recently I met a personal trainer at the water park and made friends with her. She is new to town and had a baby just seven months ago. She was needing a push to get her business going again. I was needing a push to get rid of this extra Covid weight. We discovered we could help each other out. 

 

She just texted me. Motivated by her desire to help me out with my mission of wanting to chronicle my weight loss journey as a way to communicate with my audience, she found a gym she could teach classes out of. We are starting a new journey together.  I wasn’t looking for a personal trainer but sometimes things just line up ever so perfectly. I got a battle buddy when I wasn’t even trying and all because I did something as simple as putting myself out there. The world is full of stories where two people meet and can help each other in life-altering ways. Sure, coincidence exists but I am prone to believe not always.