Proud Pain

I know of two types of pain -- the pain of injury and the pain of accomplishment. I've struggled with the former for several months now, as I've been trying to heal my hip pain. But at the moment, I'm indulging in the latter -- pain from my amazing strength training workout yesterday.

It's great. Whenever I lift my arms, I'm reminded of the many reps of combination lifts I performed. If I laugh or change positions in my seat, my abs send a quick reminder of the work I did on the balance ball. The high heels I put on this morning are a lovely reminder of my calf stengthening/balance exercises. And most exciting -- the lack of hip pain tells me I did a great job of stretching the muscles in my legs.

I suppose the pain might not be so great had I been consistently working out in this way. But I simply feel proud of what I'm capable of doing.

Kicking out the Lazy

I haven't figured out why I can manage to wake up for long runs on Saturdays but during the week I lose all motivation. That's probably why our team holds mid-week practices on Wednesdays and Thursdays -- I'm not the only one who needs a bit of help. But as I've been easing back into my training schedule, I've had an even more difficult time staying consistent with my strength training workouts.

So this morning, I had the help of an obnoxious phone call at five minutes to six to help wake me up and kick me out of bed. The call wasn't even for me, go figure. I got ready and went to Bridget's insanely cheerful gym. For an hour, she reminded me why I love training -- breaking my mental barriers and accomplishing empowering physical challenges. I left sore, but in that great way where you know you did something tough.

And I was energized and pumped to continue on track to get stronger, healthier and happier.

And then the clock reached 9:30 am, and I crashed.

So now my challenge going forward is to find ways to harness the good feelings I had during my training session and immediately afterwards, and hold onto them for as long as I can. I want to focus on that feeling when I start arguing with myself each morning whether or not I want to get out of bed and go for a run.

It's interesting. I know that some workouts have been better than others -- but there is not a single workout that I've ever actually regretted doing. I definitely can't say the same for the number of mornings I have skipped working out.