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February 01, 2006

The Week of Mondays

Yesterday was... not a good day. It started off bad, feeling like a Monday even though it was a Tuesday. I couldn't get up and out of bed to go to the gym, so I decided to sleep in and run after work. Even after resetting the alarm for 7 (which is hugely late for me), I still felt sluggish and tired and cranky. Once I got to work, I was just dragging. I couldn't get it together, and the situation was not improved by the fact that I had customers being pushy and demanding and desperately wanted to tell them to go jump in the lake. If there was ever a day when I desperately needed a run, it was yesterday. Instead of gearing myself up to go home and take a nap when 5:00 finally rolled around, I worked on getting myself excited about being able to go to the gym and just run all that crap out of my system.

However, yesterday was also a lesson in why I shouldn't put these things off until the end of the day. First, I found out I had to work late, to monitor some things that were running. However, I could still run! I only had to check in once an hour, so I could check it at 5, head up to the gym, get my 4 miles in, and be back in the office in time to check it again shortly after 6. Perfect. I grabbed my gym bag and jumped in the elevator. As I was heading towards the gym, a thought popped in my head: did I remember to pack shorts? I know I had set them on my desk to pack, but did they actually make it in my bag? I stopped, got out of the way of the other rush hour pedestrians, and opened my bag right there on the street.

Sure enough... no shorts. CRAAAAAAP. I did some mental juggling in my head - clearly, I didn't have enough time to go home and get the shorts and then go to the gym and run before I had to check back in with work. Maybe I could do my worky stuff, then go home, and then go to the gym? Nope... that wouldn't work either. I could do it in theory, but I wouldn't get home until 9 or so, which wouldn't give me any time to do the two loads of laundry I desperately needed to get done. Craaaaaaap. I whined to myself, maybe stomped around on the sidewalk a bit, then added this to the already long list of Things That Have Annoyed Me Today.

Was there a secret 3rd option? Maybe, but I was tired, frustrated, and in no mood to deal with it. So I didn't. I went back to work, finished my stuff, then went home and did my laundry, and then went to bed early. Was I happy about it? Not even a little bit. Except for the going to bed early part - that was nice.

This morning, I was determined to go to the gym before work, so I could get my run in before anything messed with it. When the alarm went off at 5, I wanted no part of it. But I also didn't want to have another repeat of yesterday. I dragged myself out of bed, got to the gym, and figured I'd slog through the 4 miles.

Wouldn't you know it - I actually had a really great run! Well, as great as a run can be on the treadmill. I'm finally used to jogging the slower pace on the 'mill, so that's not a problem anymore. Plus, I had my handy dandy little armband radio so I could have sound with my TV, and that was just as awesome as I'd been hoping. Because I had sound, I could let my eyes wander, and not miss anything (a big problem when I was relying on the closed-captioning). I won't say the run flew by, but it wasn't horrifically long and boring, either. Plus, my heart rate spent most of the run right where it was supposed to be, at 75%. Last week, I was fighting to keep it under 80%, which was just frustrating. Sure, it's not much, but it's something.

I wish I could end this on some sort of profound note, saying that because I got up and ran this morning my day has been all sunshine and roses. It hasn't - I'm still tired and feeling like I got up way too early. I still have a ton of laundry to do once I get home. But, no matter what happens, at least I know that I started off the day by doing something good for myself. And that feels pretty darn great.

Posted by Dawn at February 1, 2006 12:44 PM

Comments

Posted by: jeff at February 1, 2006 04:14 PM

Posted by: Dawn (aka Pink Lady) at February 1, 2006 07:24 PM

Posted by: Dianna at February 3, 2006 08:00 AM