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Adventures in living a healthy, juicy life

Guest Post by Hayley Forster

Here’s our Hayley with the next installment of her progress in preparing herself to undergo the “Tough Guy Challenge” scheduled for July 2010 in the UK. This week, she updates us with her goings-on since we last heard from her at Week 3.

You can see how it all started in “Hayley – Tough Guy Challenge – Week One“ - Cheryl Ragsdale

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Well, you haven’t heard from me in a little while…. why is that? Well, I have been a very busy lady I will have you know! But how often do we hear that?

‘I can’t get the housework done I am ridiculously busy!’

‘I can’t come out for a few drinks tonight – I have far too much to do…..’

Being busy gives you the perfect excuse to avoid the things you don’t want to do. But what about the things you do want to do? How do we find times to fit these in our busy schedule? With great difficulty – that’s how.

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Tough Guy Challenge Update

A few weeks ago, I had a knock back in my training for Tough Guy.

Unfortunately, I was born less than perfect and have flat feet causing high impact exercise to be very painful for me. I knew there was a reason I have never been an active person… It is clearly not good for my health…

I had just reached the point in our training program where I was starting to feel comfortable with the exercise. I was confident and optimistic with our targets and most importantly, I was enjoying it!

Then injuring my knees really set me back. I took a break to let my knees heal, but this caused a big problem for me.

During this break, I lost my motivation. I dropped out of my new habit and I knew it was going to be so much more difficult to get back into my stride.

As I write this, I’m still not back into training – part of me is dreading getting back into it and building up my cardio and stamina again and part of me IS excited to get back into it. It is a mental battle already!

In conjunction with this lack of motivation, I was probably in one of the most busy and stressful periods of the year so far. Busy deadlines at work, 3 business trips planned and so much to do at home – I was seriously planning on getting one of those clocks that Hermione used in Harry Potter! Oh to be in different places at the same time! Imagine the things I could get done…

My plan was to go to Mexico on business and find some time to go to the hotel gym and do some low impact exercise to ease myself back into training.

Well, that is easier said than done.

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Before my trip, I caught a bad cold and felt rotten.

I stopped by Boston to catch up with Cheryl on my way to Mexico and tried out a Muay Thai class. It was great fun!

However, skipping for 10 minutes straight exhausted me!

The combination of jet lag, illness and the fact I had not done exercise in a few weeks had clearly taken his toll on me! Phew!

It was also somewhat embarrassing… training with all these extremely fit people. My self doubt started to creep in. It was proving difficult already.

However, it did make me more adamant to do some training while in Mexico, BUT (yes here it is  – the famous excuse) I was far too busy to do it!

It is extremely difficult to find time in my schedule to do any exercise on these trips.

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Hayley’s Life on a Business Trip

You wake up early, get showered and go for breakfast, then you are straight out working from about 8am. You then do not finish working until 11pm, sometimes later. Then you need to catch up on mails, make notes from the day and get yourself to sleep (jet lag in combination with trying to sleep in a new bed makes this much harder than in needs to be!) The cycle keeps repeating. Very tiring! How was I supposed to do exercise at all? Your personal life blends with your work life for this whole week – you have no time for yourself. That sucks.

I was desperate to get home and get back to normal life and start my routine again. Normally, I hate routines but when you live you career 18 hours a day for 5 days, you relish the prospect of spending time with family and friends!

This is when it gets worse – I was all excited to get home, I had packed up my things and was ready to go the airport. Then, I found out our flight had been cancelled! Yes people. I was now officially a V.A.V (Volcanic Ash Victim).

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Volcanic Ash Victim

This was the last thing I needed! I had a very stressful week  which consisted of a very busy schedule, a personal setback in one of my projects, an earthquake, heightened security across Mexico City-  and specifically, in my hotel due to the visit of Michele Obama – was extremely irritating (did not help we were in the same hotel and staying right next to the US embassy – not a great plan!) and to top it off – a bloody volcano deciding to spew causing all flights to be cancelled in and out of Europe!

The prospect of being stuck in Mexico City for an unspecified amount of time did not please me.

Therefore, we decided to make the jump to New York City as they have a higher frequency of flights into the UK – I may get home sooner than the current 1 week delay estimate…..

Quite pleasant I hear some of you say? Being stranded in New York City, staying in some very plush hotels with a company credit card and a clothing allowance? Well yes, it was certainly better than sleeping in the airport and having no money to buy food, but it still was not a pleasant experience.

This was when I hit my all time low. I desperately wanted to go home and the news was getting worse by the day – not knowing when I would get home and see my husband was very tough for me. This was the longest we had been apart in our 9 year relationship. I was desperate to be home with him and yes, I was even desperate to be sitting at my desk at work. I wanted normality. I wanted it immediately and I could not get it.

I really should have used my frustration to my advantage and went to the gym. I even had Central Park and a Mixed Martial Art gym right on my doorstep – I should have went in and let my aggression out on some pads. GRRRRR!!!

But I couldn’t motivate myself.

Not having the support from family and friends and the structured routine at home clearly does not fit with me.

I find training difficult enough to do, but without these things, it makes it even harder. I need support more than I thought to get me through this.

I spent a lot of time thinking and got a lot of things into perspective. Despite the trip being a disaster – it turned out well for me. I learnt so many things over that 2 week period (some of which I will share with you next week).

Getting that 3am phone call from my administrator, telling me I had to get to the airport quick as we were booked on our flight home was possibly one of my happiest moments in a long time. It was 5 days late but I was happy with that.

Now I have normality back, I need to get back into the swing of things. It will be very difficult as I need to re-form my habit I originally worked so hard on, but I will do it. I have to…2.5 months and counting and it is coming fast!

HELP! I NEED IT.

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Hayley Forster, a long-time female fight fan, lives in the North of England with her husband, Pete. Both have deep love for the sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

Follow her on twitter.com/fairly_normal

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Would you like to guest post on ThatGirlisFunny?  Drop me a line by email Cheryl@thatgirlisfunny.com and let me know your idea or send something directly – original work only please!

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