Goal Fatigue. I Got it Bad, Man.

I've been hit! I'm down! I've fallen and I can't get up!

Or rather, I can't muster the energy to care to get up. Because, to be completely honest, I am sick of this bull crap.

No, I'm not sick of working out or training or doing my whole "Healthy Heather" thing. I'm tired of my goal being so far in the future that just thinking about it makes me tired. When I started training for this course, a year and a half ago, I planned to knock it out in nine months and move on to something new. But then, life happened. My knee happened. To make a long and boring story short and less boring, I pushed it back, pushed it back, waaaaaay back.

And now, I just want to get this *&^%$ thing over with. I am ready to move on! I want to see other workouts. I guess you could say I want to try having an open relationship with my course training. I mean, if I want to run once in a while or do a 5k here and there, who does that really hurt? I think we're ready for that; I think our relationship can handle it.

I keep plugging away, jumping over my hurdle and building my strength and doing all of my agility workouts. But I have noticed myself looking forward to the day after the event, when I can finally just workout again.

I have goal fatigue.

At least, that's what my wise friend E told me last week as I bitched and moaned to her about all of this on our dueling treadmills at the church gym. As soon as she said it, I knew exactly what she meant. I heard friends talking about training for triathlons and wished I could join them. I saw people out for a run and remembered the days when I could just cardio my day away with reckless abandon. Cutting back on cardio and focusing on strength was bumming me out in a major way.

My goal fatigue manifested itself in other ways, as well. I've been reclusive. I've been stressed. I've been...not very nice to people that I really like and care about. I've been drinking more wine than I used to. I'm acting as if I have failed, when really it's just that I haven't yet had a chance to see if I can succeed.

So, the solution is pretty straight-forward: stop this crazy train! Go for a run already! Stop being such an obsessive weirdo and just workout, silly! And when I snapped on my headphones one Saturday morning and hit the pavement to the tune of "Do What You Want," it was like the song was written just for me. Cheesy, yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm cheesy.

Okay, so problem solved, right? Ha! No, I still have this course looming ahead of me. I want to tackle it, I want to be good at it, and I want to be done with it so I can move on. But I can't help but wonder if part of the reason I have been reclusive, stressed, and not very nice is because I still have doubts as to my ability to actually achieve it.

Eh, screw it. I'm not thinking about that today. Let's just work it out.