Today's workout felt amazing. It was just one of those workouts where you feel so good and so strong. I was just going to do an easy 40 minutes on the indoor track. I got up at 3:30 am to be at work from 4-6 am to take photos on the confocal microscope (this is the only time I could do it, since I don't have day care today, and really needed to get some work done), and I felt lousy. My experiment tanked, too, which didn't help matters. But I figured I could still do 40 min racewalking, even though I didn't much feel like it at that point.
I started off the first few laps easy, but then I felt good, and wanted to see how fast I could go, so I pushed a bit harder (paying close attention to my knee, which felt fine). I was doing well; the first mile was in about 10:30. I was able to keep the pace and did a total of 5.9km at 6:32/km. It wasn't an easy effort, but it wasn't all-out hard either. My heart rate was usually in the upper 150s (162 is my 85% max HR goal for tempo workouts) but I felt great - so strong, so smooth, and wonderfully relaxed. After the workout, I stretched, listening to Enya's Watermark on my iPod, and when I closed my eyes, I felt the fan blowing on me and imagined an ocean breeze somewhere. I swear I felt magically transported... ahhhh, endorphins. Needless to say, I am feeling de-stressed and back in perspective. I never knew before, when I was a couch potato, how much I'd love exercise!
1 comment:
Yeah, gotta love those endorphins. Exercise is addictive. Wow, I thought I was getting up early at 5:30 yesterday to work out. How did you feel the rest of the day after waking up at 3:30? When I get up earlier than 6, at first I feel OK but by afternoon I am dragging and by evening I get cranky. But sometimes that's the price we pay for those adrenaline highs, right? :-)
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