Miss Me with the Never Miss a Monday Speech

Somehow I managed to not kill off an entire population or get thrown over Trump's wall to date when I miss Monday workouts.  I wonder what will happen if I miss all of the Mondays on the calendar.

Fortunately for all of Brooklyn, I found my way to the gym and after I type this post, I'll be running through some rain for a few miles because it's another day of the week --not because it's fucking Monday.  If I allowed the fitness gods to peek into my already over-sharable life beyond what I show on social media, I might be offered as some cult sacrifice to the Reading Rainbow coalition.  I've heard everything from not allowing your knees to cross your toes - yep, that's officially bullshit and you can Google check that - to not being considered a runner if you fall under a certain pace.  Frankly, all of these rules can sit and rotate.  This never missing a Monday logic makes me want to drink a Shake it Baby tea because of course, we know how well senna and laxatives work on the body.
​

Why So Salty About the 'Never Miss a Monday' Rhetoric? 

Here's the deal:  My sodium levels aren't really THAT HIGH about the 'never miss a Monday' thing.  Perhaps it's the trendy crap that tends to pollute our social media feed around this time of the year like the pretentious ass memes or the 'admire me' posts but I'm going to remind the rest of the population that you'll never be better than me crap. 

My biggest gripe about the never miss a Monday thing is that it's not realistic for everyone and some people feel so pressured by this logic that it makes them feel like a failure if they don't follow through.  Please commence the eye rolls and snobby comments that people should have a thicker skin.  Sure -- you're entitled to feeling this way completely especially in a society that's sensitive about every single thing.  But here's what I want you to consider:  How many of us at one point of our lives relied on some type of principle that a magazine, instructor or someone we looked up to for guidance and felt like they were lacking if they didn't follow through?  Please paint me a pretty little lie that covered in dark chocolate and a peanut butter filling.  Your 'Monday' theory might be in the form of not eating past a certain hour or the horrible suggestion of not eating at all before a morning workout (that one almost took my life).  Let's kill and build up some hopes and dreams about this never miss a Monday logic:
​

Missing a Monday = I Will Be a Failure for the Rest of the Week

I would be a bold faced liar to tell you that I don't feel good starting off my week with a workout but I promise you that it hasn't made me so upset these days that I threw the rest of the week into the sewer.  There's no rules posted anywhere that athletes can only be built on Mondays between the hours of 4AM - 9PM.  As people are pressured in to working two, three or even four jobs just to survive, some of the populous aren't as fortunate to prioritize fitness on a certain day of the week every week.  In the culinary industry, you can find yourself working seven days straight; spare me the conversations about labor laws.  And sure you may have invested in the dope 24/7 access gym with all of the great incentives but if you're too tired or too hungry to workout on that day, it may not be possible or even safe to pull it off on a Monday.  Call it a day off and get your ass there on a Tuesday.  If you're so guilt stricken about missing a Monday, post Monday over your calendar where Tuesday - Sunday is positioned.  Awesome!  Now place that gold star on your bulletin board and show your family how great you are.
​

Working Out on Monday Means that I Managed to Get in One Workout this Week

With this logic, I should dedicate Mondays as the only day that I do strength training, long runs, plyo work and anything else fitness in between.  Pardon my redundancy but there's seven days in a week - I think - and you can choose ANY day or seven to workout as little or much as your heart desires.  And I probably should apologize for this shitty statement that I'm about to say but I refuse:  Miss me with the 'self care' argument on this.  I'm all about self care but it's a term that's been loosely thrown around.  Self care is something that we should definitely take seriously but this can be marked/penciled in on any day of the week.  There are days that I want to take a bubble bath and relax for an extra twenty minutes but my bills says 'well I guess you like having no electricity if you don't work.'   It doesn't mean that I cannot have the bubble bath and extra twenty minutes at all; I probably need to handle my most serious priorities right now and push this off until later on in the day.  Conversely, if you find yourself always pushing off self care, then please disregard my personal views.
​

Mondays Set the Standards for My Entire Week

Adopt this logic:  Monday is a state of mind.  It's not the day of the week that set your state of mind; it's the idea of starting something and being consistent that sets the standard of how you will carry on for a certain period.  There are some really double ended statements that sets people up for success and failure out there.  One of my favorites is the one that goes:  "I never did a workout that I regretted."  Well I'm so happy for you Harriet but I am almost sure that there's quite a handful of people who would disagree.  Like my friend who worked out for 2 hours cramming in a tempo run while recovering for a hangover and almost lost her job after she could barely move at work.  And that friend would be me BTW.  Or that one runner who trained for four months and pushed an injury past its limit causing a one month recovery to turn into a year.  Sure there's no workout that you could possibly regret, even if you're laying in a cast and relearning how to walk again.
​

...But I Love Not Missing Mondays

The beauty of my blog is that I consider it as an open diary that I allow others to read, comment, criticize and even nail me onto the mesquite and cracked pepper flavored cross.  If I was writing something other than an Op-Ed section, I probably wouldn't touch this topic with a ten foot pole because I love DETAILED studies.  You know the ones that actually get more than 8 people to show up to a case study and coerce nations to believe that the entire population is a bunch of lunatics.  

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with the never miss Monday logic if you are forgiving enough to know that it's not the end of the world or your journey if you have to call out sick.  Frankly I do it a lot and this is because with back to back long runs scheduled predominately on the weekends, I'm probably not going to touch a gym, a forklift, a kitchen or even your imagination on a Monday.  We get so fixated on these publications - some of which I am grateful to write for so please don't take me out of your email list - that we look at them as the Bible or Quran.  Rules are made to be followed, broken, altered and loaded with an addendum because something is outdated.  Your fitness regimen should make sense to you and have a decent balance and understanding of  what works for your body, health, mental sanity and emotional clarity.  And if you completely disagree with my views; no hard feelings.  I promise I will not lace your pork chops with cyanide -- Girl Scout Honor.