You know it’s bound to happen. No matter how well training is going, you’re going to hit one of those days when you just don’t want to do ANYTHING!
I should have known today would be one of those days. My run yesterday was just about perfect. I didn’t really feel tired, I kept a steady pace, I felt great during it and when it was over. And looking back my toughest days have always followed the golden days.
It probably didn’t help that I’m really tired too. I love taking a writing class, but when it goes until 10pm and it’s in Times Square, I’m not getting home until 11ish. AND I forgot how much the caffeine in a chai tea latte affects me. I seriously would have been better getting a cappuccino. Oy!
But yes. Today was a monumental struggle for me to make myself do ANYTHING. I decided to get dressed and go to the gym so I’d be forced to do some type of cross-training. Yes I’ve got the dvds at home, but if I’m home, there’s nothing and no one stopping me from just shutting it off. And yeah, at the gym no one is MAKING me do anything, but it’s that peer pressure – or at least perceived peer pressure. I would feel stupid just doing 5 or 10 minutes on a machine and then leaving. Sure the people around me might not really pay attention, but I’m pretty sure the people at the desk would notice since they’re the same pretty much all the time.
So then it was which machine to use. I really don’t like the ellipticals. Probably because they remind me of those stupid Nordic Track things that I could never figure out how to work. I failed at cross country skiing the time I tried it too. I know that it’s NOT like that, the elliptical, but for some reason it reminds me of it. I also don’t like trying to stop and reverse – it seems like no matter how careful I am, at least once I end up accidentally stopping the workout and then I have to restart. So I didn’t want that. And the bike… Well, either my butt was going to hurt or I’d feel like I was too lazy using the recumbent one.
So that left the Cybex cross-trainer. It’s some kind of torture device that’s a combination of an elliptical AND a stair climber I guess is the best way to describe it. I’ve done it once before. I feel slightly more balanced on it than the elliptical, so that’s a plus. So… Onto Mr. Cybex I got.
The first 15 minutes were sheer hell. Part of it, granted, was me trying to do too much. Once I got it leveled down from 4 to 2 things went a lot better. I also had to get my brain out of the way – and that was harder because my iPod was out of charge and I could not make the thing connected to the TV or Planet Fitness Radio work, so I was reading subtitles and sort of hearing the music over the loudspeakers.
But then somewhere around the 15 minute mark, I just settled in and did it. And it wasn’t that bad after I just settled in. I can’t explain why it happened or even what happened, but I made it work. And it felt good.
Oh…and in case you were wondering what the impact of the change from level 4 to level 2 was, I still burned 375 calories and kept my heart at an average of 149bpm. So there!
Who knows…maybe I’ll do it again on Friday and split the difference. Try level 3.
