How do you measure progress?

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I'm not gonna lie. I've been pretty frustrated lately. I skipped a race I had been looking forward to. My mile time I swear is getting worse. I joined a weight loss challenge and GAINED weight. And I feel like my PT progress has been 2 steps forward 1 step back...with a couple random extra steps back. I have questioned why I haven't quite yet.

But you know what? I almost gave up on another race this past weekend, but through the encouragement of a friend I showed up and walked 3x farther than any of my "training" walks this year. And you know what, it wasn't so bad. My legs didn't actually fall off, my back behaved the majority of the time, and the after party was a blast.


I'm making more mental progress than physical progress. But I guess progress is progress. I audibly admitted (complete with sweat and a couple tears) how frustrated I am with my backs progress at physical therapy to the PTA I was working with this week, cause you know crying in front of a coworker is always high on my list of things I want to do. But that all happened because he gave me the choice of more hands-on work vs core strengthening exercises, and I choose the strengthening! And wow, let’s just say a lot of the strength and stability I built up last year has slipped away. Between that and the uneven strength in my quads I could choose to wallow and be even more discouraged about this than I already am. But I am choosing to take that as the kick in the pants that I need. Doubling down on my PT homework, I will be strong again, rewriting my weekly schedule to make sure I get to the gym no matter what. 



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