Getting Back to Normal

I almost felt normal today.  Still a little more tired than usual, but no pounding headache by the end of the day, and my upset stomach has settled down (*knock on wood*).

It was a long day, though.  Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings are my least favourite clinics of the week, so they’re very long and draining.  I had planned to do cardio + upper body today, and as I was leaving school, I was trying to figure out how to motivate myself to get my workout in.

To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t hard to talk myself into going out for a run.  It was a little cold (-13 C), but it was sunny out and looked pretty decent.  I was thinking of doing 5 k, but 1 k into the run, I realized that (1) I haven’t done anything more than 3 k since I don’t know when, (2) I haven’t run longer than 25 minutes in a heck of a long time, (3) I’m trying NOT to re-injure my IT band, and (4) I’m on antibiotics and am still getting over being sick.  So, once my iPod died around 2.25 k, I convinced myself to go to 3 k and call it a day.

I’m happy with my decision.  There’s still snow here, so the ground is very uneven and often slippery,making it slightly treacherous out there, so I was using muscles that I haven’t used in quite some time just to stabilize.  Things in the hip and pelvic regions are feeling pretty sore and tight right about now, so I’m glad I didn’t push through to 5k.

After my run, I felt like I could just go to bed.  I took that as a sign that doing the upper body workout should be postponed to tomorrow night, when I have the energy to really nail my workout.  Even though I was slow as “molasses in January” (or, in these parts, March apparently.  betcha haven’t heard that oldie-but-a-goodie saying for awhile, by the way.), I was happy about the run.  I basically ran as slowly as a could to keep my breathing under control – so really, really slowly – but a slow run is so much better than no run at all.

However, a run with music is much, MUCH better than one without (to me.  you are allowed your own opinion).  While I like the idea of running sans music, so that you tune into your body and appreciate nature, etc., the reality is that at this point, I need something to distract me from the fact that my legs are tired and I’m breathing in a hard and ugly way and, my gosh, running is hard when you haven’t done it for awhile.  When my iPod died on me today, I realized just how much I love listening to music while I run.  Oftentimes I find I’m not even listening to the music; I’m just working through stuff in my head or paying attention to my posture or how my feet are hitting the ground, but I’m definitely distracted from the hard-ness of running.

You might be wondering what I listen to when I run.  Well, I haven’t really created any new running playlists lately, but I downloaded a new album + a few new songs the other day, so today I listened to:

• Born this Way by Lady Gaga
• I Need a Doctor by Dr. Dre (featuring Eminem and Skylar Grey)
• the album 21 by Adele (well, I didn’t quite listen to the whole thing)

So, to recap:

• happy with my run
• pushed back my upper body workout to tomorrow night
• listened to new music (and am loving the Adele album)

How have your workouts been going?  What have you been playing on your iPod lately?