I did not get a good night’s sleep last night, so when my alarm went off at 6:30am, I reset for 7am. Too tired! But that extra half hour of sleep was filled with bad dreams and me feeling guilty for not working out, so when it went off again at 7am, I got up.
I started my morning routine, all the while thinking about how I was wasting time and it was going to be the same situation as Tuesday. And in some ways, it was. At 7:20am, I was at the point in my routine where I’d usually head for the gym. For the few minutes beforehand, I had been thinking “Maybe I’ll just do yoga. Yoga would be right here in my hotel room, and then I could just do cardio later tonight. Maybe that’s really the best idea, to do that instead of hitting the treadmill.” But then I thought about how I had blogged last night about definitely going for a run this morning, and I made up my mind – I was hitting the treadmill. (Hey, I guess I took my own “go public” advice I gave everyone in O Magazine!)
When I do cardio at the gym, I usually hit the elliptical instead of the treadmill. Both are cardio machines, and on both of them, I typically watch a video on my phone to pass the time as I work out… but for some reason, I just hate the treadmill. It bores me and I want to get off after just 5 minutes. I spent all my time on it cajoling myself (in my mind) to stay on longer, and it’s just the worst experience ever.
Today, though, I gritted my teeth, and after my 1.5 minute walking warmup (incline 1.0, speed 4.5), I kicked it up to a run (speed 7.0). I tried to focus on last week’s episode of The Biggest Loser, which I had brought with me for entertainment – and lo and behold, it worked! After 2 minutes, which is when I’m normally checking the time like crazy and wanting to take a walk break, I actually felt no desire to stop at all. Instead, I looked at my workout as something I had to get done as quickly as possible – and that the faster I went, the more mileage I would put on and the more calories I would burn. Definitely a necessity given my last two days of mostly skipped workouts!
Since I was shorter on time than I had anticipated when I posted yesterday about planning to run for 30 minutes, I told myself that my goal was 2 miles – which I’d get done in about 18 minutes (including my 1.5 minute warmup). But when I hit 11 minutes or so, I decided that I didn’t have to stop at 2 miles. Maybe I couldn’t go the whole 30 minutes and still have time to get ready for work, but surely I could squeeze in one more mile? (Oh dear, shades of how I got started doing my first marathon).
I ended up doing 3.1 miles in 27:02 – which I was pretty pleased with. 5K to get the day off to a great start! And it did get me off to a great start. Instead of feeling like a sloth, I’m energized – I feel like I’ve totally turned my week around. Instead of thinking that tonight I have to work out to make up for all my missed workouts earlier in the week, I’m now thinking about whether I get to workout – as in, something I’m excited about and looking forward to. How great would that be if I could turn my week around from being lazy into being uber-productive?
Stay tuned.