Well it is officially a new year. I survived an entire calendar year of not only being healthy but blogging about it. This is definitely some sort of record for me. But boy are the holidays sure hard in terms of consistency on the schedule. Even today my body is out of whack given the New Year’s holiday. I am honestly looking forward to next Monday and a return to a clean slate in terms of schedule. This morning entirely felt like Monday to me but I guess it is nice that it is actually Thursday and therefore only have to endure another day and a half of work at this point and then get another weekend. Boy this sure can be difficult at points.
I attended class Monday night at the gym but then I had to work on Tuesday, New Year’s Eve, and the gym closed at 5 PM so I was not able to go after work. I REALLY didn’t want to take the day off from exercise since I knew New Year’s Day the gym was also closed. I decided to go ahead return to my old school roots for an evening and came home from work and directly went to my treadmill. I realized that it has been close to 6 months since I have come directly home, changed into workout wear and hit my at home treadmill. Boy how time does fly when you are having fun. I set the treadmill to a 6 mile per hour pace and decided to run without thinking about it. I knew I wanted to get a decent run in so I set my sights on an hour. I remembered the days where I’d come home and run for a solid hour day in and day out without batting an eye. I was just going to try and accomplish that. So I ran. And honestly it was both harder and easier than I remembered. Funny how this contradiction can exist. Some things were much easier than I thought. Some things challenged me. But I kept running. When I hit 60 minutes, 6 miles, I wasn’t quite done. Sure, I was tired but I wanted to push thru a little more. So I went ahead and did another 20 minutes, 8 miles and THEN decided that was good enough for a night.
Here is the part that made me smile from ear to ear. I have a calendar right next to the treadmill where I used to record all of my time. I decided for the hell of it to flip back to Jan 1, 2013. And in the spot for December 31, 2012… I had my workout recorded. One year ago exactly I ran pretty dang near the same distance, it was actually 7.85 miles. I remember being so proud last year that I worked out both on New Year’s Eve and on New Year’s Day. I remember thinking that 2013 was going to be different because I ended and started the year being healthy. And of course this year I wanted to produce the same outcome which was in part why I decided I really had to exercise on New Year’s Eve. Anyway, one year ago I ran 7.85 miles but here’s the kicker, it took me 106 minutes. That put a huge smile on my face. HUGE. I mean, without realizing it or trying, I bested my time in a year by a lot. Close to have an hour all things said and done. This isn’t shocking to me really because on Dec 31 of 2012 I still weighed almost 190 pounds and had honestly only been back at it for less than 3 months. So at the time, even being on that machine sweating it out for 106 minutes was a victory. I completed that same distance in like 78 minutes this year. About 28 minutes faster. When I got on the treadmill I didn’t even realize that this was going to happen. I didn’t even think about it at all honestly. But at the end of my run I was proud.
New Year’s Day my gym was closed. My friend Amanda and I had been texting about working out at my house with my equipment since the gym was closed. What ended up happening was something entirely different, unexpected and kind of special.
Amanda texted me New Year’s Day about 10 AM. She said that some of the gym employees were all going to get together and use their keys to sneak into the gym to do a workout. (Not really sneak in since they had keys and all.) She asked me if I wanted to meet them there and work out with them. I of course said yes. I told her I felt so special being invited and she told me I was special! When the time came, I meet her at the gym and secretly we made our way into the closed gym.
It ended up being 7 employees of the gym and me. I was the only non-employee there working out. It was so cool being there with these trainers and people I see day in day out, music cranked up, doors locked, killing an awesome workout. We had the entire gym to ourselves. I felt like I was part of a special secret club. I’m not supposed to talk about it as to not make the other gym goers jealous so it was not mentioned on any social media for obvious reasons.
We ended up being there a little over 2 hours I think and I had a killer workout with Amanda and another gym employee. It was a really fun time all things considered and I definitely did feel special. This is what 6 months of going to the gym and building real relationships with people will get you. So in the end I did NOT miss my gym workout. But it’s my little secret to keep. My life today looks sincerely nothing like it did a year ago. It’s so crazy to me that so much can change without realizing it. All those small little movements day in and day out can result in a year later things being dramatically different. Never give up I guess. Change is always happening.
I am going to try and get some progress photos taken this weekend so I have some “before” photos… not really before but at least photos from the beginning of 2014 so that when the year is over I have a whole year’s comparison. Since this is my year of strength I really want to try and do a better job of documenting it. That is on my list of to do’s. I want to have a Jan 2014 photo and then a Jan 2015 photo and I intend to see growth and mostly hopefully more tightness of the skin. That is really my goal for this year. Not that I have any actual control over how much my skin will or won’t tighten up. All I can do is keep working on it, drinking my water and pray that things tighten some. I really do think they have tightened a lot already so I can only guess that in another year things will in fact get better.
I have another 6 months of personal training to complete as well. Basically thru June of this year. I don’t know that I will actually continue with personal training once my 6 months are up, basically because I do so much on my own now and might not need it the same way anymore. We will see. 6 months is still a long time though so you never know what will happen. All I know right now is I am still immensely enjoying myself and this entire process and I have mentally committed to kicking ass in 2014 and seeing where this all is going to take me. The sky’s the limit for me….
Tonight I’m back to the gym with a 30 minute dumbbell fit class and then an hour of turbo kick. Should be fun times…. Now I am off to run some work errands.
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