Day 9: What an accomplishment today was! After waking up and reminding myself that I had not died due to training, I went through my daily routine wondering if I would have the energy to run at the end of the day. (Just like anyone else, if I don't "feel" like running, it makes it really hard to get to the gym and do my best.) Within moments of peeling myself out from bed, I was already trying to make up an excuse for why I couldn't run today and why I should take a rest day instead. I think running is killing brain cells because I never thought of a good enough reason.
So, off I went to the gym with the goal of running three miles, maybe three and a half. After mile one, I was able to break through my mental brick wall. After mile two, I was more than halfway. At mile three, I realized I still had it in me, so I went for it, and then, to my surprise, I kept on running. I actually had to stop myself after five miles because it was the longest I'd run, and you never want to increase your mileage too much when you are first starting. The pain didn't start rushing into my knees until after I stopped running and starting noticing how strange it was for my body to NOT run. I guess it only takes 45 minutes to form a habit.
Thank goodness for the gym crowd today. During my run, I had so many amusing people around me to distract me that my run was over before I knew it. Like the old man to my left who was running faster than me. I swear, he came next to me on purpose to make fun of how slow I was running! And then there were the two super loud girls to my right. I could hear their entire conversation OVER my headphones. By the end of my run, I actually increased my speed to get it over with and "show them." Which I did. I think I was the first person on the treadmill tonight and the last one off. Victory!
Yesterday (day 8) was a cross training day (active rest from running), so I decided to bike at the gym since it had been a while. The beauty about cross training at the gym is that I can chose from so many torturous machines: the elliptical (which I went from loving to hating--see post for day 7), the stair machine, the bike, etc. As horrible as the elliptical was the other day, it was beaten by the boringness of day 8's stationary bike work out. The stationary bike at the gym never feels like a work out to me because anything that involves sitting sounds lazy. Of course, it's very different from biking outside, as I've been reminded by a crazy biker friend, but that is just not a possibility for me right now. Maybe come May when the temperature is above freezing. Until then, the stationary bike it is!
The positives to biking as a cross training activity: you get to sit, and it actually is one of the best ways to burn calories (second to running, I've heard). It's also a great quad work out (better than running). I haven't quite learned how to burn a lot of calories biking because when I set the bike to automatically change the resistance randomly so I'm not bored, I spend the entire work out changing the work out level because the resistance gets too hard or too easy. I guess I am just not as smart as the bike!
As I completed my embarrassingly low calorie burning work out, I thought to myself that I had earned a small amount of calorie binging when I got home (and by small, I mean 100 calories). Lucky for me, biking day was also Girl Scout cookie delivery day! I somehow made the mistake of skipping out on Thin Mints this time, but the boxes of Tagalongs and Samoas would do. And so, at the end of my thirty minute bike routine, I came home, turned on the Bachelor and enjoyed one measly Tagalong. Mind you, that one cookie made up for most of my burned calories, but eating a cookie and watching the Bachelor just sounded like the right thing to do. (It also sounded like what depressed people do, except they eat all BUT one cookie!)
PS. Running MUST be killing brain cells because my mind just wasn't the same tonight after my run. I left the gym without my jacket (in 20 degree weather), tried to turn my ipod down using my computer, and had to ask my husband what 14+14 was. But my leg muscles make up for it!
Quote of the day: "Success isn't how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started" (which is my case was zero because I never really moved--darn you treadmill!)
No comments:
Post a Comment