Gym Days

[float_on_alright]

I wasn’t sure about going to the gym this morning. I actually did manage to go to sleep… well not at a reasonable time considering how early I get up, but at least not absolutely atrocious. There have been nights I’ve stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning only to turn around and get up just after 5 am to go to the gym with dad. I got a solid five hours of sleep last night, which, honestly, felt pretty damn glorious. The last couple of weeks, I’ve stayed up so late that it barely feels like I’ve fallen asleep when my alarm goes off--just one second I’ve started my sleep story and the next I hear my alarm. But last night I slept long enough to wake up, check the time, roll over, and go back to sleep. It was so, so nice. That probably sounds kind of dumb, but I love waking up once in the night to realize that I can roll over and go back to sleep. I don’t want to toss and turn all night or anything, but one time waking up at 3 or 4 am and not even having to pee, just glance at the time--I don’t know, it’s just super satisfying to know you’re going to sleep longer. Maybe I’m weird. Maybe if I wasn’t sleeping so few hours most nights, I wouldn’t be feeling that way.

 

I don’t feel tired today. I woke up feeling good at 5 am. I wondered if I should tell dad that I wasn’t going and just go back to sleep instead. I wondered if maybe the feeling of rest was false and I was going to end up having a poor workout and possibly injuring myself. But I had a great morning, gym wise. I did another entry in the “Couch to 5k” app walking a total of ten minutes and jogging 25 (in a row!) and felt good at the end--sweaty, sore, and breathing heavily, but good. I was able to go almost 2.4 miles all told, which is pretty exciting. The goal is obviously to get to 5k, but the ideal would be that I’d be able to jog the entire 5k and do it within 45 minutes. Right now I’m averaging around 15.6 minutes per mile. That’s pretty okay because it does include my time walking. If I can get to where I can solidly jog the whole thing, my average will drop. According to the “Couch to 5k” app logs, my jogging speed is around 14.5 minutes per mile so if I can keep that pace for the whole time, I should get to that 45 minute time I’m aiming for.

 

I read something that said if you practice slow, long races, you’ll be good at slow, long races. I’d like to be good at… well not fast long races, but at least quick long races--if that makes sense. I think long term, I’d like to get the point where I could do a 5k in under 35 minutes. A ten-minute mile is a long way to go from a 16 minute one, but I feel like it’s not an impossible standard to meet. I would definitely be very happy with getting down to eleven minutes. Even in college, I don’t think I quite managed to get to the ten-minute mark. Honestly, for all that I’m still significantly overweight, I’m probably in the best fitness shape of my life. This is, I do believe, the strongest and most endurant I’ve ever been. I know that I did sit ups and push ups and all sorts of physical activity in P.E. back in grade school nearly every day, but I hated it and I was miserable and I worked very hard to avoid physically exerting myself or getting involved in any way. Maybe I could’ve done more straight sit-ups in a minute or whatever our standardized fitness test called for, but I can’t say that for sure. Not that I typically do sit-ups anymore. I do variations of crunches and plank, but not just regular old sit-ups. I think I’d be bored out of my mind if I did.

 

Push-ups could go either way. I feel I have more upper body strength now than I ever have, but I’m only just starting to add in some push-ups here and there and I’ll confess to not being very good at them yet.

 

Sometimes I start to get discouraged about what I’m not able to yet or how slow it feels like the results are coming (ugh Kate stop eating 800 carbs a day girl and you’ll be way better off), but I’m trying to focus on what I have been able to do and the improvement I’ve seen and how good I feel. It’s not always easy, but it’s important to do the work so that I don’t get discouraged and quit. Not that I feel like quitting, but I’m thinking that’s also because of how hard I’ve been working to focus on the things I can do now that I couldn’t before and the drop in overall body fat percentage.