A.M. Workout

On Tuesday I got pumped to try a morning workout after reading some discussion threads on the Runner's World website. Somehow, I managed to abide by my loud and irritating cell phone alarm that went off at 6:10 yesterday morning. How I was able to spring up out of bed at that time remains a mystery to me since on most weekdays, I cannot get out of bed until around 7:40 when Dave is yelling at me for at least the 3rd time to get up. At any rate, I got up, brushed my teeth, changed into the clothes that were laid out, and went downstairs to drink some water and have a small snack - piece of bread with some crunchy pb. I went on the back patio and plugged the treadmill in and put my brand new Lenny's Greatest Hits in the cd player. It was really nice to listen to him without the skipping. Since it was still dark out, I didn't open the blinds because I would have been staring at my reflection and that creeps me out. Side note: another reason I can't open the blinds when it's dark out is that I get a recurring daymare (a daydream that is a nightmare. I think I just made this word up) that I'll be trotting along happily and a clown will pop up outside the window (as if from nowhere) and scare the bejesus out of me. And of course I'll be paralyzed with fear, unable to scream and he will fly through the wall and most likely kill me. Fortunately, this isn't something I think about all the time. It usually only happens on the treadmill...or sometimes when I'm washing dishes at night and the porch blinds are open (there is a window above my sink in the kitchen that looks out onto the patio). Although I don't view myself as an unstable or bizarre person by any means, I can certainly see why one might think otherwise after reading what I just wrote. Oh well, I gotta keep it real. I hate clowns. Always have.

Ok, back to my workout: I hopped on and warmed up for about 3 minutes. Then I did 6/1 intervals for 4 miles. It was kinda tough and I was really tempted to stop after 3 miles but just kept going. One thing that tripped me up a bit was that as I was on my last .25 mile I realized that I didn't reset the distance on the tread and that if I wanted to truly do 4 miles, I would have to go BEYOND the 4th mile. Grrr. So much of the workouts are mental and when you've got an end point in mind and have been focusing intently on it, it's a real pain to push beyond said "end point". Of course, I wasn't awake or bright enough to look at the distance after I finished my warmup, so I just ran an extra .25 mile to be safe - I knew I hadn't gone nearly that far in 3 minutes walking as slowly as I did to warm up. As frustrating as it was, I'm really glad it was only .25 and not a longer distance. My cooldown was about 8 or 9 minutes and then I stretched a bit.

I know a lot of people love working out in the a.m. because they feel energized for the rest of the day. Prior to yesterday's workout, that had never really happened to me. Sure, I only had a handful of a.m. workouts but I never had that fantastic feeling...I'd be good for a while and then I'd crash in the early afternoon. Thankfully and surprisingly, yesterday was different! I felt really good physically as well as mentally - knowing my exercise was already done for the day and that when I got home from work I could do whatever I wanted (unfortunately, this turned out to be laundry, dishes and vacuuming). I didn't experience my midday slump either, it was incredible! Here we are today and I could literally fall asleep as I'm typing this. I planned on getting up this morning but couldn't muster it. Bummer. I'm going to attempt to remember these two days and how drastically different I felt so that I can encourage myself to get up early at least a few days a week. For the longest time I've said that ideally, my day would start with waking up early to work out, followed by shower, breakfast, reading the paper, and then heading to work.

Tuesday Kevin and I wogged, which entailed more walking than jogging but it was good nonetheless. I think we went about 3 miles. Tonight I'm going to do 2 or 3 miles, depending on whether I decide to do speed work or not. Happy Spring! :)