Welcome Back, Old Friend

I have a confession to make: I'm a slacker. I haven't been working out like I should, and I think that is part of my problem on the ice lately. (GH made the observation that I'm not as quick as I was before). Between an absolutely brutal tournament schedule (one had me on the ice for 6 games in the space of about 50 hours) and quite a bit of a mental funk, I've completely dropped the workouts. It took me literally 4 days to recover from one of the tournaments; I wasn't about to pile more abuse on my body in the form of workouts. That's not dedicated, that's just stupid. But of course I could have stretched every day. That wouldn't have worn me out. Did I? Nope. Or I'd recover from a tournament and then have a game the next day. My schedule got completely out of whack. And as I mentioned, I've been in a bit of a mental downward spiral. Time to change that. I worked out yesterday morning and again today, and I forgot how good it feels later in the day. I forgot the energy you get from keeping your body moving. I do have more tournaments on the horizon, but that doesn't mean I have to drop everything completely.

I'm determined to get back on track but I need some help. One thing that was great about when I had lessons with a coach, besides the lessons themselves, was the accountability factor. I had to be up at 4:30 in the morning to be on the ice with him in time to make it to work on time, and you can bet your ass that sucked. But I did it, because I knew he'd be there at the rink waiting for me, and you can't just not show up because you "don't feel like it". I need to apply the same discipline to getting out of bed and going downstairs to work out. (Thankfully, I don't have to get up at 4:30 to do that!). One idea I had was to keep a log, where I write each day what I did, or if I didn't, why not. For example:

Monday - Sp/Core/Mob (from UGT)
Tuesday - St/Mob (from UGT)
Wednesday - nothing - didn't get up on time <--- slacker!
Thursday - nothing - late night practice last night <---- this is ok
Friday - 90 min on the ice (open hockey)

etc, etc.

Clearly, this didn't keep me honest enough to not completely fall off the training wagon. So, I could use some suggestions. Should I tweet each day what I did or didn't do? Not sure about that one- who the hell cares, right? Keep up with my written log and add smiley faces and sad faces because I don't like seeing sad faces? You'd think the motivation of being better on the ice would be enough. I feel like a jackass that it isn't. Maybe I should put a sticky with the scores from my worst games next to my alarm clock, that way if I don't feel like getting out of bed, I have the motivation staring me right in my face.

And in Stanley Cup news, while I was writing this, Mr. Inappropriate came and asked me who I want to win, and then gave me crap for rooting for Boston. Sorry buddy... I know as a NY team supporter I'm supposed to hate all Boston teams, but Timmy is a BEAST* and half my family is from Massachusetts, so too bad. Mr. Inappropriate has a region-appropriate hatred of Boston teams, so he is rooting for the Canucks. He challenged me to a $5 bet, and we pinkie-swore on it. So that makes two bets I have going on the B's. The other is with twitter buddy DWKeoughan: the loser changes their avatar to a picture of them in the winning team's jersey. (I believe that's what we settled on... correct me if I'm wrong?) So you Bruins better bring it, because I don't feel like losing TWO bets!!!

*No, I have not forgotten Tuukka. I feel so awful for him, not playing any games, having the crappy season he had, but with Thomas playing as well as he has, how could you possibly not play him?