I was at the gym at 7 a.m. this morning for a hard upper body, cardio and abs workout, which was great. I love starting the day both ahead of schedule and with a workout. As my workout buddy says of working out first thing int he morning, “You’ll already have done the hardest thing you’re going to do all day.”

Plus, there is something really satisfying to me about being up, dressed and out of the house before the sun comes up, don’t you think?

Speaking of manifest, I’m a big fan of taking my brain through my goals. Before I run a race, I visualize the sections of the race as if I’m running them. Before I take on a fitness challenge, I visualize myself kicking ass as it. It’s not nearly as new agey as it might sound, and for me, it gives me a slight advantage: my brain seeing how doable the task ahead is before I try my hand at it.

So, yesterday, a group of people assembled, many strangers until yesterday, and whipped through magazines, books and newspaper we each toted along and assembled some goals in a visual way. We each threw together basically a collage of images that represented our goals for the year ahead.

I didn’t pay much attention to selecting images that represented anything, deciding instead to just grab images and words that appealed to me and that seemed interesting to me, throw them together and then see what it all meant.

Needless to say, my lovely collage is peppered with chicks kicking ass, strong abs, tight rear-ends, buff arms and athletic women with arms raised in victory.

I’ll take that.

Find me elsewhere on the Web lately:

• “Happy (literary) new year” on Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row
• “The passing of time,” my new year video and link-list post on Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again

I’m lucky enough to have a gym at work. And luckier still to have some fitness-minded coworkers, one in particular, keen to see my fitness comeback. So, I’ve been hitting the gym often again, just like in the old days (And by “the old days” I mean, not that long ago.), usually with a coworker who knows far more about weight training that yours truly.

At first, while trying to run again on the treadmill felt exciting and relieving, returning to weights felt discouraging in that I realized just how far I’d fallen having to stay out of the gym all this time. So, the first cycle of workouts were awful: light weights, low reps, even straining to do what was quite simple months ago. But, after the the first cycle of workouts, I started to feel my muscles start to slowly begin to shift from sore and horribly untrained (as if every shred of athletic conditioning had simply never happened) to yesterday’s joy: Yesterday I felt tighter muscles working with me, not against me.

It’s been a ridiculous time getting back to this point. I’ll admit that I felt completely disconnected from my runner friends. For months, even while in physical therapy and seeing a bit of progress, I didn’t feel like an athlete anymore. And, I built a lot more of my life on that mindset that I was perhaps able to admit before the injury. I largely ignored the blogs and websites I read daily before because they didn’t feel as the same to me as they did in earlier, fitter, uninjured times.

But, to hell with all that. As much as it has felt very one step forward, two steps back for months, I think (hope) the corner is finally turned.

Granted, it’s tough to go from being in great shape to being feeling like I have to start over fitness-wise post-injury. I had a great workout today, yet I could feel where exercises felt challenging with lower-than-usual resistance. But, that’s okay; it just shows me where to do the most work. I’ll get back to as fit as I was before my wreck last year.

(Sidebar: it was a year ago Thursday, that car accident that started this whole mess. )

So, in summary: I feel  the lost time for which I need to make up from being largely on the fitness sidelines this past year, but my head is in the game to get back that smart and fast.

Who knows, maybe I’ll come back better than I was before. That would be ideal, fer shur.

The good news about that, though, is that I immediately felt like my injury rehab was back in my own hands. Funny how jettisoning a stupid piece of metal can do that.

Now, I just need to remember to not get frustrated by starting from scratch, fitness-wise. I’ve gone from what I would classify as “extremely fit” to “strong as a garden slug” in a matter of months. So, that part should be interesting.

I really must get back there to do some serious hiking sometime soon.

Feel free to check out my Flickr set from the weekend.

Two recent posts I wrote on ChicagoNow’s Sports community blog:

How to navigate water stops

How to get a kick-ass finish line photo

Have a great race everyone!

Hydrate

Good: Buy powdered sports drinks and mix them yourself.
Better: Wave away plastic race cups by carrying your own water in a secure container (like Amphipod’s Hydraform Handheld Pockets).
Best: Use reusable bottles instead of throwaway plastic water bottles.

See the rest at Runner’s World.