Friday, February 10, 2012

a battle worth fighting

This morning is the perfect example of why I need to run outside and not in a gym or on a treadmill.  I'm not sleeping very well this week, as I'm extremely over-excited regarding having found an apartment of my own (my employer has generously allowed me to live on-site for the last 6 months, and it's time to move out).  Moves always over-excite me and rob me of many nights of good sound sleep.  So the lack of rest has been accumulating, and when my alarm went off this morning, I felt more resistant to getting out of bed than I have in a long time.  I groaned aloud.  I hoped it was the phone ringing, and not the alarm.  I thought about skipping it and sleeping an extra 40 minutes.  Everything in me protested the whole time I was dressing. 


Even worse, everything in me kept noting that I could turn around and just go home...pretty much for the entire first half of the run.  I just kept thinking it and thinking it:  Too tired.  Just go home and rest.  If I had been in a gym or on a treadmill, I never would have done the whole run.  It would have been too easy to quit.  But the thing about being outside is that I'm already down the road.  It's going to take some energy to get back anyway.  I can't just jump in my car and go home.  So that makes it easier for me to push myself a little harder, and argue that I'm already out here, might as well do the whole thing.  


It took A LOT of pushing this morning.  I kept catching myself slowing down, and then I'd have to crank it back up.  I'm feeling pretty good, on that front - I still got the full distance in, and did it right exactly in the usual 32 minutes.  Which means my "faster" must have been pretty good, if it made up so well for the "slower" that kept creeping in.  


I'm glad to have won that whole little battle.  What I know for sure is that exercise GIVES me energy - it doesn't only take it away.  The 40 minutes spent out moving will do a better job of energizing me and adding to my mental clarity and alertness to work through this tired day than I'd have gotten from 40 more minutes of not-very-deep sleep.  


And I can sleep in tomorrow, anyway.

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