Results of Vacation

 I’m sitting here on a plane from Fiji to LA, sort of brooding on the negatives at the moment, which is somewhat justified since Jake and my travel back from our New Zealand vacation is not going quite as we planned. We should be on a flight from LA to Denver right now, but our Fiji connection got delayed (overnight mind you) and therefore we are missing our connection. Really, it has gone about as good as it could thus far given the circumstance. Air Pacific put us up in a hotel last night and we had dinner vouchers and a 3 minute phone call… sort of like prison. But it has been a stressful 24 hours. Then this morning we come to find that we won’t be able to make any connections to Denver tonight and will have to stay overnight in LA. Again, Air Pacific has claimed they will provide a hotel and food for us, but this remains to be seen. The point is, that I am just about at my breaking point patience wise, ready to be back at my own home, in my own bed. And I miss our pets. L

While the New Zealand vacation was fantastic in some aspects it was a total and complete disaster in others. Mainly maintaining my hard earned fitness. I had been on such a role before I left (I even blogged about how proud I was of myself and my training) and then this trip happens… I take most of the responsibility for my current state, however there were a few underlying factors. First, traveling for 30 hours then trying to do a run with a bunch of guys in a city you have never been too is not a good way to start the international training block. I honestly didn’t feel too bad walking around but jetlag/fatigue/stress were invisible culprits who attacked in the first 5 minutes of my run. After such a negative experience, I can hardly blame myself for not leaping out of bed the next morning to endure the Wellington elements (wind/rain/hills). Plus there were much more exciting things to do. This leads me to my second deterrent. It’s not like I was lying around all day eating shit and sweating on the couch. No, every day was an exciting new adventure of exploration around the city of Wellington. Jake and I walked an average of 3-4 hours per day, and it was exhausting! On the days I did run, well, let’s just say I was wiped out by about 2pm, sort of disappointing. Third, I am not exactly sure of the day it started, but by the second day of our trip I could tell something was off. I am pretty good at reading my body and there were unwelcome signs pointing me in the direction of illness. Sure enough I woke up one morning with a sore throat. This progressed over the following days to such a croaky voice I could barely project. Although I never felt feverish or achy (apart from the result of all the walking) I was definitely sick. My prognosis is that I had been pushing myself in life for such a long time that when things finally slowed down my body took the break a little too far. It was an unfortunate event, but thankfully barely impacted my enjoyment of the vacation itself. My motivation took a hard hit though.

And to top it all off there was the food. Some of you may know that Jake and I follow the Paleo diet in our everyday lifestyle. Well, Paleo-shmaleo in New Zealand. One of my goals for this trip was to eat a lot of good New Zealand food (none of which was Paleo). And that I did, and my body hasn’t liked me for it. I am dying to get back home and back on track because I have some serious work to do. Literally, I have never seen my body “blow up” as it has the past two weeks. I am in a right panic about it. The light on the horizon is that I lost some weight switching to the Paleo diet and pretty quickly, thus I can do it again. I am hoping that a few weeks of training and eating right will leave me feeling back on track. The depressed feeling I get every time I think about it is driving me crazy. I was so fit and I just threw it away. Ok, this is a little dramatic, I know. Yes, under this new layer of padding is the fit runner I was three weeks ago (can it really only be three weeks?). And really, I can’t have lost that much fitness in three weeks. I am trying to tell myself the damage I have done is minimal in the long term, perhaps slightly less than ideal in the short term, but worth the full enjoyment of two weeks sans reality.

In the months to come, I hope I will look back on this time, this blog, and laugh at my obsessive worrying. I have to remember the goals I have set for myself are long term and will not be affected by a few mindless weeks of heavenly eating. I have known athletes who have bounced back from far worse dips in fitness. I am still dedicated and determined; I just took a little vacation (both physical and mental). You never know, in the long run this lapse may actually benefit my performance. It has reminded me how much I like being fit and training consistently, how much I appreciate my home town, and how much I never ever want to take a break from Paleo ever again. Now that I have experienced firsthand what happens to my body when I increase my consumption of non-Paleo food, I can say making those little sacrifices is well worth it. I feel that in future travel/vacation scenarios I will refrain from completely disregarding the Paleo mindset and indulge in a treat here and there, just like I do in normal life. On a different note, I just ate an entire airplane breakfast, tiny hot dog “sausage” (that a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away began as meat) and all and I am feeling really great about myself! No, actually I’m not, but my stomach isn’t rumbling anymore. Our bodies are miraculous in the way they can take in processed food and turn it into energy. But just like the environment, clean (unprocessed, raw) food is the best fuel for our bodies. International customs don’t seem to care too much about that type of clean energy, as they made me throw away all of my fresh fruit and produce. Lessons learned friends, lessons learned.

e.