Sunday, March 15, 2015

Exercise Diary: No skiing, but yes running

I've decided that Fridays, more precisely, Friday nights, are my favorite time.  Despite the fact that grad students have no lives and are expected to work all the time, other factors dictate that when Friday comes, we all know it.  And for the past two Fridays I've really been enjoying them as Friday nights should be enjoyed.  I went out to dinner (burgers and fries), and caught a movie (in real theaters and everything, Marigold Hotel last week, and Cinderella this week.) Afterwards I decided that I needed a rest day, a real rest with junk food, happy evening, and no exercise whatsoever.

Not that it was a conscious decision from the very beginning.  I just felt exhausted.  After the 4.5-miler the day before, I could really feel my legs the next day, something I haven't really felt in a while.  My legs were really tight and my muscles were really sore, and I wasn't even running that fast.  Could I have over-exercised?  I definitely felt the benefits of all the pilates and anaerobic workouts, but I feel that I had pushed my body into something it's unfamiliar with and now it's protesting.  Or maybe I was just being lazy.

Well I have to say yesterday I was being lazy.  And short on time.  I had to catch a 7am bus to Boston, and although I went to bed earlier than I've ever done I still only got about 6 hours of sleep.  And between traveling and doing stuff in Boston I spent exactly 12 hours outside of my apartment and about 1 hour in the rain.  As much as I'm happy that the worst of winter is finally over and we are finally anticipating something resembling spring, I had forgotten how much I hated rain and really would rather prefer snow instead.  Anyway, I got home, ate dinner, watched some TV, and basically just fainted in my bed for about 4 hours.  I woke up at 1 in the morning, did things I was supposed to do on Saturday night (some translation work and stuff, all sedentary), and then I just couldn't fall asleep again, knowing that I had to meet my friend at 8 the next morning for skiing.

Like my title said, the skiing never happened.  I simply overslept.  I didn't mean to, although my poor decisions made it a reality.  When I woke up at 8:36 I was greeted with 5 unanswered calls and one text message telling me that my friend was going to wait 5 more minutes before leaving me (that was sent at ~8:20).  I got the feeling that I wasn't the only one invited to skiing (in fact, I really hope I wasn't, or I would just be the rotten person who made her friend get up at 8 for nothing), since she had done it before, picking up other people for outdoor activities I thought I was the only guest of honor.  But after the panic that I overslept, and the immense guilt that I was a bad friend (in fact I was just internally upset at another friend the day before for not showing to to go to Boston with us and canceling last minute.  I think what I did was way worse), my third emotion was, perhaps unsurprisingly, relief.  And that feeling was further cemented by the pouring rain outside.  I know we would go up in some mountain where the rain was probably snow up there, but still.  As much as I want to squeeze a ski trip in before the winter is out I don't want to do it in weathers like this.

After all these emotions, and somehow managing to send a text back, I fainted for another 4 hours until I couldn't fall back to sleep right again after waking up and finally declared that I was awake.  The rest of the day wasn't any more productive.  I answered a work-related email that didn't take up much time but made me feel that I had done some real work today, ate so I didn't starve myself, watched more TV while I drank a lot of tea (hydration is good for you, etc etc), and went for my 3.5 mile run.  Cuz what else would you do.  In fact, one of the reasons I was happy not to have gone skiing is that I could ensure that I do my run without the fear of feeling to tired.  I got to the gym right before 8, caught the end of the third batman movie, and spent the rest of my run watching a PBS special on the manners of Downton Abbey.  I was hooked to the program, but at the same time annoyed that it was part of a pledge drive so they cut the show every once in a while to these really long pleas for the viewers to donate money.  So I didn't actually get to finish the program before I left.

The gym on Sunday night was, again, deserted.  I don't know if it's because it's finals week and that people are either really busy or have already gone home, but the treadmills were again all vacant when I got there.  In fact, only very few cubby holes were fill by the lobby and the gym in general was very empty.  Which was kind of nice.  The run wasn't that bad but was kind of hard, and that was when I sort of regretted not exercise in the past few days.  Tomorrow I will go back to my full workout schedule and catch up on all the missed workouts.  But at least I completed all the runs for this week and that's something isn't it.

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