Weekly Wrap-Up: Embrace the Bonk

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

Hi everyone and welcome to this week’s wrap-up. I’m linking up with Wendy and HoHo for their Weekly Wrap series again, so be sure to check out other weekly summaries over there. This week, I want to talk about what it means to bonk and how I have learned to embrace the bonks in my life.

For a runner, a bonk is when you hit that point in a run when you have hit fatigue and have a total loss of energy. For me, this week started off with a couple of bonks. If you read my recap from last week, you may remember that last Sunday’s run did not go well. It was already super humid and hot when we started and by 3.1 miles I was done. I ended up walking almost every step of the last mile and a half. Man, being out of shape stinks!

Then, on Monday, the bonk struck again, this time it was somewhere between 2 and 2.5 miles of a 3 mile run that I started having trouble. I kept trying to get running again, but my legs just felt dead and I couldn’t keep my heart rate down, so I ended up walking most of that last part and it got me to thinking about why bonks happen and how to get past them.

For me, just like others, bonks happen for a variety of reasons. Maybe I’m a little dehydrated. Maybe I went out too fast at the beginning of my run. Maybe I ate some crappy junk food before an afternoon run. Maybe it’s just too hot. And sometimes, bonks happen because my head just isn’t in the game and self-doubt about myself as a runner starts to creep in.

When a physical bonk happens, I have started embracing them. I let myself take it easy, but I keep moving forward for as long as I can. I walk and if I can get it back together, I run a little, but I get the miles in (with the exception of one time when I was recovering from a nasty stomach virus).

Mental bonks are different. For me, mental bonks happen when I’m having a particularly challenging run, but rather than just being physically out of it, I start to doubt myself as a runner. I’m slow and I’m never going to be a fast runner. My form stinks and that’s why I’m injured. I’ve let myself get so out of shape that I’ll never get back to where I was when I was running 30-40 miles a week. Those thoughts can really do damage. My best strategy for embracing the mental bonk these days is to acknowledge that where I am right now as a runner, isn’t where I was 4 years ago, but my life is also very different, and that it is going to be a long journey to getting back in shape, but I am capable of getting there.

So, two physical bonks in a row this week, really did get to me, but I kept up with my workouts and made it through the week…

Here is how my workouts went:

• Monday – 3 mile run, 10 minute walk, 20 minute walk
• Tuesday – 10 minute cardio warm-up and 25 minutes strength, two 10 minute walks
• Wednesday – 3 mile run
• Thursday – 25 minutes strength (I was not feeling well when I woke up so I decided to skip the cardio this day)
• Friday – 30 minute run (no walk breaks, only running!!!), 20 minute walk
• Saturday – REST DAY – 2.25 mile family walk
• Sunday – 4.5 mile run (Runkeeper quit on me at 4.3 miles, so I have no idea what my actual splits look like, but I felt good!)

Food this week was great too! We had a delicious risotto last Sunday, I got to play around with a recipe for a healthy chicken shawarma one night, and I also toyed around with some slow-cooker turkey meatballs. I can’t wait to play around with these recipes some more! We added in an extra cheat meal on Wednesday so that our family could have dinner with one of my new co-workers, but other than that, I did a good job of sticking with my eating plan.

As for the weight loss journey, I had a bit of a bonk there this week, too. This week I am back up in weight by a couple of pounds. It was disappointing to step on the scale and see that number, but this always happens around this part of my menstrual cycle, so I’m trying hard not to stress about it or second guess what I’m doing. The week ahead will present some challenges because we are traveling, but I’m going to stay strict on my diet and exercise until we get to our family dinner on Friday night and that should help limit the damage from a day of amusement park eats, a seafood dinner, and what I’m sure will be a big family breakfast on Sunday. We’ll see how the scale looks next week!

And now, back to the bonk. We have to remember to take the bonks we come across in life, whether they are in running or in some other aspect of our lives. Bonks might be setbacks in the short-term or may stick around for a while, but we can bounce back from a bonk and keep moving forward in our lives. We learn about what causes those setbacks and we compensate to make us better. Embrace that bonk and use it to make yourself better!

How do you overcome a setback when you come across one in life?