Today wasn't the best day. A series of unpleasant events started at work and just kept on coming even after I had left the office. Add to that some rainy weather and by the late afternoon, my mood had taken a noticeable downward turn. Needless to say, I was not super enthused to tackle my run this afternoon. Originally I was scheduled for a rest day today but I missed my tempo run yesterday due to time constraints and I didn't want to skip the first strength building run on my schedule this week! So off to the gym I went.
When I got to the gym, I dutifully made my way to the treadmill for my warm up. After running an easy mile, I stopped to stretch in preparation for the main part of my workout - a 15 minute tempo run at a pace about a minute and a half faster than my normal conversation running pace. To be honest, I was a little nervous to do this run; it had been a little while since I'd run at a faster pace and I was worried about getting out of breath and not being able to finish.
The first minute or two of the tempo run was great - it felt awesome to be running at a faster pace! I didn't know what I had been so worried about - it was so easy! But as the minutes went on, the initial easiness wore off and the run became more and more of a physical challenge, From experience, I knew that from that point on, I would just need to mentally push through it. My body could handle it - I just needed some mental focus to stay on task.
After what felt like waaaay longer than 15 minutes, the tempo part of my run was over. I relaxed back to an easy run to finish out the workout and spent some time stretching on the mats before I headed for home. As I was walking to my car, I realized that for the first time today, I actually felt pretty good. My bad mood had lifted and I felt more relaxed. I think my run today exemplifies why I like running so much -- it's a free session of (sweat) therapy!
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