don't judge

Kind of like, "Don't judge a book by it's cover", but "Don't judge a workout by how you are feeling that day". That's what I learned today. All day I felt crappy, tired, groggy, unshowered, yuck, fat... you name it. It was one of those days. The workout of the day was staring me in the face and I was scared to even step on the treadmill. And of course it was my tough one of the week - the tempo run, 5 miles. I decided I would feel even worse if I skipped the workout, so I turned the machine on. Funny thing, the first treadmill I got on I was messing with the buttons because even though it said "0" incline I could have sworn it was inclined. Or... are my legs really feeling that heavy??? oh man, this is not good. I tried my warm-up and could not shake that feeling of uphill, so I tried the next one. ok, thank god! It was inclined. ok, back to the workout...

After the warm-up I set the buttons to my 7:30 pace and then thought, hey this isn't terrible. Well about a mile later I was still feeling comfortable and, dare I say, feeling really good! Well, there were still 4 miles to go and I wasn't about to count my chickens before they hatched. So, I just clicked along. And pretty soon I was 3 miles into it and then it hit me. This feels good. This is what I have been waiting for! My heartrate wasn't jumping way up, I was relaxed, felt comfortable and for the first time in a long time, I was enjoying this pace! I was so excited. I almost did 6 miles, but decided to honor the recovery week thing.

I thought about it and think maybe part of the reason is because I have fresh legs coming off a day off. Maybe I'm getting more in shape or a combination of the two. But whatever it is... I'll take it. And that was a valuable lesson for me... just because I felt like crap, doesn't mean the workout will be crap. Lesson learned.