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For ever so many reasons, this was almost the day that I broke my workout string. And it’s not even that I’m committed to working on the treadmill every single day for the rest of my life. In fact, I’ve learned from this journal that you can keep going on something at a decent pace, even if it’s something you’ve done daily for a long time. I’ve only done the treadmill daily for five straight days.
But today? Today it was a chore, and it wasn’t all just because I’ve been going so hard at it for so long. In fact, I’ve been going as hard as I can, but your mileage could easily vary. I have a top speed and top incline that I haven’t surpassed and don’t intend to, at least for awhile. I might never go beyond thirty minutes a session, and I’m okay with that. So far, I haven’t done enough to make me feel even a little sore the next day (although I’m often pretty sore for a little while right afterward).
Last night, in the middle of the night (at about 5:30 am), the electricity went off, and it came back on this morning at 7:30. How did I know it went off at 5:30? I woke up in the recliner at 5:20 and crawled off to bed, and the power went off a few minutes later. And how did I know it came back on at 7:30? Worried that I’d overslept, I turned on the radio (to whatever random channel it was already set to) and listened for a time check, which came a few minutes later at 7:43.
When the power goes off or on in my house, it sounds like the Main Street Electrical Parade, with a series of electronics grunts and burps and wheezes and whistles at various pitches. My stuff doesn’t just go to sleep; it complains loudly about it. And when it wakes up, it’s like your dad in the morning (or James sharpening a machete on the Dabu beach). You don’t sleep through it.
So after the power came back on and I’d reset the bedside clock, I curled up and went back to sleep, and I didn’t get up quite as early as I normally do, which isn’t all that early in the first place. It would have been easy to tell myself I’d got too late a start to work on the treadmill, and after my fitful night I didn’t feel all that energetic anyway.
But I also knew I was going out to lunch later on today, so I wouldn’t be doing my morning errands at their usual time. That fact, and the extra bonus that it was Friday (yay), gave me whatever incentive I might have needed. I didn’t do quite as well as I did yesterday, though. After about five minutes, I started looking at the twenty minute mark to give up for the day, and that’s the only thing that kept me going that long.
And then, when I hit twenty minutes, something happened. I turned the speed down a few ticks, and I flattened out the incline a shade, and I kept going. And as wretched as I’d felt earlier, it felt good to keep going! I think maybe that’s the secret: Keep going at whatever pace feels like the best I can do at the time, and stop when it feels right. It sounds simple, but it helps to have it as a sort of mantra. |
