My love-hate relationship with Mondays...

I have a love-hate relationship with Mondays. It's complicated. I'm not sure anything can help at this point (except maybe if I didn't have to work on Mondays and it would just be another "weekend" day for me). 

The reason for my "love-hate" relationship is two-fold:
1. I love Mondays because it's the start of a new training week for me. It's a chance to "start clean" and "clear the slate" of any previous mishaps over the past week. It's also my traditional rest day, which I have come to appreciate as a well needed break for my body.

2. I hate Mondays because it's the start of a new regular week and it pretty much means the weekend fun time is over. It's a "back to reality" check, when I have to come to terms with the fact that the bills don't pay themselves (sadly) so my M-F job is a requirement, not a recommendation. I love the people I work with, don't get me wrong, but given the choice I (like most people) would rather work because I want to not because I have to.

Today marked the start of a new school year for Kaiyu (8th grade!). I tried to do the "first day of school" picture thing but that was met with a death stare that read "Mom, I'm 13 not 3" (sigh...teenagers). The first day of school also meant the first day of school traffic (lovely). The roads were not fun today. As I type, Kai is in the midst of algebra homework "aka" her high school math class in middle school (one of the 5 advanced classes she has this year).

Apart from my typical "Monday blues" today was a good day. I did some of my physical therapy exercises and plan to do some leg massages before bed. Tomorrow will be a running day for me because I have a 5K on Saturday, so in order to space out my running days I will run: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday of this week. That means my cardio days will be Wednesday and Friday. I will rest on Sunday and then (depending on how I am feeling) run next week Monday, Wednesday, Friday and the following Sunday. Sounds simple enough right?

I keep track of my training schedule and make necessary adjustments weekly (sometimes daily as I dodge Life's "curve balls") and post it on a calendar hanging on my bedroom wall. I also keep track of completed activities in my training journal

Sanya (twin sister) bought this one for me. It's the same one she used when she trained for her marathon and she recommended it (as did hundreds of reviewers on Amazon.com). I started using it at the beginning of the year and absolutely LOVE it! I also have the benefit of the "history" feature in my Runtastic app, but I only document my running (and occasional walking) sessions in Runtastic. My journal includes all my activities: cardio days, swimming, weights (when I was focusing on that) etc. It's great to look back and see how far I have come (or reminisce on "where I was").

How do you keep track of your training? Do you have a running journal also? a notebook? or do you use an app?