Back in the Saddle Again

So, yesterday, I went back to the gym.  Let me back up a minute.  Yesterday, I woke up.  My husband and son were out and about so I could get some quiet sleep.  I woke up two hours early.  I found the mail. There was a huge package from Minneapolis.  I didn't remember having purchased anything from Minneapolis, but I ripped into the package anyway.  I thought I might find some yarn or something like that.  No!  Inside the package was my race gear for the Get Lucky on my birthday!  I was thrilled!  I tried on the hoodie.  It was kind of snug.  I thought to myself, I need to get off that weight I picked back up since August.  I went through the contents of the package and found a slip telling me that the hoodie was not the size 2X, that I thought.  It was an XL.  I had zipped it up pretty easily, but there wasn't any spare room inside to be had.  Seeing my number and hoodie, I knew there was only one thing I could do.  I got dressed up to run.

I went to the gym.  It was 5 degrees outside, and I was almost motivated enough to run in the snow, but I needed to go back to the gym.  There were two very good reasons for this.  The first reason being that the jerk that caused me to quit there in the first place was gone and I could feel safe going again.  He had been giving my friends the stink eye months after I left and there was no way I could pay good money to a place that was not only going to employ a bully, but paid him to manage one of their sites.  The second reason is this, my job reimburses me $15 a month if I go at least 10 times.  Now, I need to go for the next 9 days straight, but yesterday was the latest I could start that 10 day stretch.  

Enough about the financials, let's get to the run.  I was going to do intervals of 2 minutes running with 1 minute speed walking times 10 to add up to thirty minutes overall.  Well, I started and felt pretty good at 2 minutes, so I kept going and ended up doing 3/2 intervals.  I listened to a little bit of this and little bit of that.  I happened upon a song I had run through one of my races with and it just struck a chord with me.  I actually got goosebumps for a while and almost cried I was so happy to be back on the treadmill.

I still had the inner battle going on.  I'll stop at 15 minutes and then go lift and then come back and do the last 15.  I'll stop at 25 minutes, I mean I don't want to overdo it, do I?  No!  I'm just going to do this and that's that!  I finished.  I felt amazing.  I felt awesome.  I ran into the membership guy I signed up with on the way out.  I thanked him.  He made joining back painless, almost pleasant, even.  I headed out with the determination that I am going to get back to working out 5-7 days a week.  These next nine days, I have to.  Yes, for $15 I will go to the gym 10 days in a row.  I am going to be so set for that 7k, those Chicagoans won't know what hit them!

It's so nice to get my motivation and determination back and it was all because of a green hooded sweatshirt.