Struggling to keep it going

After a weekend of two zeros (but one damn fun party!), I spent Monday in a negative funk and was resigned to a lazy, pissed off, early to bed with no workout kind of night.

Fortunately, my team once again came to my rescue. Jessi and Natalie were scheduled to do a 90 min ride, and I was motivated just enough to go. Then Steve-o joined in, and voila! Instant weekday ride! With my crappy Monday, I was sort of expecting a blah ride, but I was hoping that maybe a good sweat session might snap me out of the funk. Not sure if it solved all my ills, but I did end up having a great ride. That's big for me, cause usually trainer rides aren't all that productive. I even succeeded in working up to a Zone 3 average heart rate, so that was a bonus. I suspect it was the presence of 3 awesome training buddies. So, thanks guys! I am glad I came.

Me, vertigo-less Jessi, headband rockin' Steve, and basketball goddess Natalie pound out the miles in the basement.

So, with an anti-zero Monday, it was off to the gym Tuesday night for another butt kicking by Steve. It made it easier to go when Andy agreed to go and do some cardio, so off into the night we went. Imagine my suprise and delight when Natalie came back for another hour of pain. And then, Trish stepped up and joined the party! Nice!! We did an intense 40 min of arm pounding, during which I quickly became frustrated at how I seem to be getting weaker with every strength training session. Uh, isn't strength training supposed to make me capable of doing more pushups rather than less??? Anyway, I made it thru ok, though my body didn't seem to have much to throw at this workout. Oh well. Something is better than nothing, right? Then we all went to get ice cream. Sweet! At least there was one good thing from the workout. :)

Fast forward a mere 8.25 hours, and I am up again, headed to the gym for more "pain with Steve". Hmmmmm, how many catchy names can I come up with for these workouts? :)
The weird thing this morning though, is that I am not really all that sore in specific places from yesterday. Rather, its just a general lack of energy throughout my body.

In fact, I feel kind of like this:

A big pile of useless bricks

My only hope is that I am somehow moving thru the stages of strength training, and I will soon arrive at the "feel awesome, feel stronger, can actually see muscles getting more defined" stage. Faith. Patience. I know that's what it will take to get to this stage. Two things I don't have alot of when it comes to this kind of stuff. Which makes Steve's job that much harder. If he can somehow convince me to keep doing this, I will count that as a major victory for him. Good luck, buddy! :) Right now the count is at 4 sessions. Which is 3 more than any other strength training routine I have ever embarked on. So far, so good. I just hope it pays off next season. And actually "seeing" some results would be nice too.