After we completed school, and finished all of our house work, the kids and I made it to the gym before lunch time. I texted my peeps, and reached out for prayer. I really wanted this first experience to be successful. I occasionally caught myself thinking, I need this first experience to be successful, but that is a bit dramatic. The truth of the matter is, I knew that even if I couldn't run a 1/4 mile, it wasn't going to be the end of my fitness journey. I would just take what I was given, and then slowly build up my strength again. I didn't need to be a rockstar right out of the gate. But it sure would have been nice. :0)
After I dropped the kids off in the childcare, I stared at the treadmill. It was all very drama in my head, lol. Could I do this? Would I fail? Would I succeed? (boring.) I decided I was never going to find out the answers to my questions until I actually got ON to the machine!
I started walking for the first minute...and continued to the second minute. But then I told myself, GET GOING! And I did. I set the treadmill at a slower pace than I'm used to...a comfortable pace...a 5.0 to be exact...and I was off and running. :0) The first mile came and went, and I was surprised that I wasn't out of breath. The second mile came and went...I wasn't as excited through that one...my body was still warming up, and the excitement of "exercising" was, well, no longer exciting, lol. But by the 3rd mile, I had hit my familiar groove, and I was in the zone. I was tempted on multiple occasions to increase the pace, but I decided not to. I kept telling myself that this was my first time running in 30 days, and to not over do it on the first day. I didn't know how sore I would be immediately following this run, or even the next day. So I kept my pace at a 5.0 for the duration, and at the end of my hour long adventure on the treadmill, I had completed a 5 mile run!
I felt great! It felt amazing to be sweating...it was thrilling to be accomplishing things on the treadmill...it felt good to be doing something positive for my health!
Physically, everything felt good also. So the next day, I headed back to the gym at night, but decided to do my cardio walk on the treadmill instead of a run. I set the treadmill at 3.8 pace, and I bumped up the incline to the max...15. An hour later, I had burned close to 1200 calories! :0)
Again..."It felt amazing to be sweating...it was thrilling to be accomplishing things on the treadmill...it felt good to be doing something positive for my health!"
Because of our plans to go to the desert on Saturday, I did not have time to go to the gym before we left. The best part was, I didn't make myself feel bad about it. I had 2 prior successful days of exercise, and I had house work to complete before we left for the day/night. That was part of the lesson I learned during this break. I needed to find balance in my schedule. I needed to realign my priority structure. Fitness should be a priority in my life, and a part of my almost-daily schedule, but it should not be the item on my list that the rest of the day is built around...twice.
My new plan is to workout once a day, 6 days a week...Sunday will be my day of rest. Most of the days, I will workout at the gym in the evening after dinner, and after Rick goes to bed. But on some days (like today), the other items on my schedule will dictate that I will skip the gym, and instead take the kids with me on a 3 mile run around our neighborhood AFTER school and AFTER housework is completed. No more making myself crazy...and no more rushing the family through our day to make my agenda of 2 workouts happen.
(Embarrassed sigh.)
Dear Lord, please forgive me for being ridiculous.
I LOVE this post!!
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