I finally hit the wall. Which is funny, because I’ve mostly been sitting.
For the past six weeks, I’ve been going for a walk almost every afternoon, to get some sun and fresh air and get out of the house. Until recently, it’s been nice out. Now that it’s officially “hot” (100+ degrees), I’ve started using a sun umbrella and taking a water bottle.
We’ve been biking three to five evenings each week with The Kid.
We’ve been lifting out in the garage usually twice a week.
We’ve been running sporadically.
But I still don’t feel … active enough? I think there’s just not enough days with heart rate up. The bike rides tend to be slow, walking in hot weather with an umbrella is average pace. Neither of those raise heart rate.
Also, I’ve been waking up around 6 most mornings, usually just before or with The Climbing Daddy’s alarm. The Kid wakes up between 7 and 7:30. So I have an hour or more most days between when I get up and when the chaos begins.
Twenty of those minutes go to journaling; that still leaves time.
So I decided to go out and run. Not far—1.5 to 2 miles. If some day I’m inspired to run more, I will.
Today was the first morning to run. Today, of course, I woke up close to 7. Tired.
Laying in a puddle of sleepy shame, I decided to start tomorrow.
I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. The act of getting out of bed and starting to move was all it took. I decided that I could run today and that I would feel better if I ran today and didn’t postpone it for another day.
So I went. It was cool (relatively) and sunny and lovely outside. I did a slow-even-for-me mile and a half.
The run itself was fine—not amazing, not terrible—and the feeling of getting it done is excellent. The mood-boosting benefits of the run are always welcome.
As an added bonus, when I got home, I texted a screenshot from the tracking app to a friend. (We often text about exercise things and will congratulate or encourage each other. Kind of long-distance exercise buddies.) I included the text: “Almost didn’t do it. Feels good to get it done.”
She replied, “You inspired me. I was literally putting on my shoes to walk the dog, but I think we’ll run a bit now.” And they did.
Gotta start somewhere. I started today.
