Ending the year strong

I had a great lowkey weekend which is exactly what I needed after a hectic week and a few less than ideal weeks. My seasonal allergies combined with travel really put me in a hole the last 3 weeks. Feeling rundown led to a lot more bad habits as I tried to make up for lost time.

I finally got back into green recoveries after living in the yellow and red for the last few weeks and my health has suffered. As a result, I felt great all weekend and was a much better husband and Dad. I was happier and more energetic all around. The joy I got this weekend from just simply being a Dad and husband this weekend topped anything in my life the last few weeks.

Finding a better balance and focusing on my recovery has been the theme of my year so far. Sitting here coming into the end of the year, it’s been a mixed a bag. It’s always felt like 2 steps forward and 1 step backwards. I had a lot of progress through the first half of the year, and then the last 4 months have just gotten away from me between summer travel and then work travel picking up the last couple of months.

It’s time for me to flip the switch and really focus on recovery first. That first starts with not overdoing plans and realizing that an easy night at home is warranted. As much as I want to go out and have fun, my body simply cannot handle it much anymore.

Secondly, it’s making sure that I get into bed on time and stay on that schedule — that started out well and things slowly creeped later. Over the course of a few weeks, that sleep debt really adds up and puts me in a spiral especially when it comes to the weekends. Critical to my sleep, the drinks are not helping my sleep. I’ve been proud with how much I’ve cut my drink count down over the last year and it’s significant progress, but that drink or two at dinner does enough damage to my sleep with very little to gain.

None of this is new of course and it’s something I’ve probably written about the most this year. But of course, writing about it and actually making changes is a big difference. I’ve put a fairly aggressive goal for the next 2 months to close out my year strong. I want to see a noticeable change in my recovery score these next 2 months, and along with that I want to finally see improvement in my VO2 max numbers which should reflect my overall health.

I’m excited to turn the page and get some good momentum going into 2027.