I feel silly. I was already in bed but my mind started racing, convincing myself that I had to come back downstairs to type this blog post before I could lull myself to sleep.
Yesterday I ached a little. After Monday’s 45 minute jog/run, I felt pretty good, but yesterday my muscles reminded me that they had not been used like that in a while. This morning when I woke up I hurt even worse. I was recalling all of the times I began a new activity only to shortly thereafter abandon the notion because of muscle strain and pain. This is why people give up exercise plans so soon after beginning them! One of the reasons anyway…
But, I wasn’t going to let myself get off that easily. I didn’t want to give up, so I went to the YMCA again today to run on the track. I told myself that I would go every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so I didn’t want to let myself down. I went. I walked the first three laps around the track, feeling the dull pain with every step. Then I ran a couple. Then I alternated walking and jogging for the rest of the entire 45 minutes. I didn’t die!
In fact, I beat Monday’s success of 34 toothpicks by one. At the end of the 45 minutes I had tossed a toothpick on the ledge 35 times, for a total of 3.04 miles. I calculated that I will need to complete just one more lap (36 total) in order to complete the 5K distance. I anticipate getting to that point by next week, if not on Friday! So much for taking two months to complete that goal!
That assumed, I think I am going to just carry 36 toothpicks with me and work on improving my time. My first 5K will likely come in at about 45 minutes, so I will spend the remainder of my goal’s two months trying to get that number closer to the 30 minutes that sounds a little more standard. That way, I won’t necessarily have to always allot 45 minutes to my exercise plan. Eventually, I’ll only have to spend 40, then 35, then 30 minutes reaching the 5K distance — and that will leave more of my hour (the hour that Sarah is in the child care room) for stretching or lifting weights or hangin’ out at the bubbler!
