Tough days, better nights

Picture this:  The day starts great.  You wake up fully energized, although you only got about 5 hours of sleep.  You spend the day tackling challenge after challenge.  Meals are planned carefully, eaten at the appropriate times, and you've been drinking water like it's going out of style.  You have a training plan, and you're set to check yet another "easy" workout off the calendar.

Then, it happens.

90 seconds into your run, you can't breathe.  You're sputtering on the treadmill, praying the guy three machines down has his headphones blaring.  Just when you catch a good breath, your calf cramps.  Then, a side ache kicks in.  6 minutes in and you--quite literally--think you're dying.  You think, "Why the hell would I do this to myself?!?"

Finally, you hit the mile mark.  On any normal day, this would have simply been a glance at a placemarker on your way to mile 3 or 4.  But today, you just can't seem to get it together.

Inevitably--I think--it happens to the best of us.  Today, I had a crappy run at the gym.  What was supposed to be an "easy" workout ended up thoroughly kicking me in the ass.  I hopped on a bike to finish up, feeling guilty every second.  Then, I had a personal training session.  Ab work, squats, lunges, push-ups, pull-ups......and the StairMaster (cue: Hallelujah chorus).

The inventor of the Stairmaster was clearly a masochist.  Only a truly sick person would think a perpetual stairway leading to nowhere would be a hit.  Yet, we athletes may be the mental ones.  Why do we keep insisting on climbing 60 flights of stairs just for the hell of it?!

I left the gym nearly two hours later feeling like a slacker......but then I remembered that only 12 weeks ago I couldn't even run for more than 2 minutes at a time.  I would have had an AMI if I would have done even half of what I accomplished today!!

So, take THAT gym!  I may not have run two miles (I did run one), but I still kicked your ass today.

How did you do?  Kick the StairMaster to the curb?  Show that medicine ball who's boss?  =)

Whatever you did, congratulations.  At least you did something active.  That's more than most people can say.