Exercise

I can’t remember the last time I wrote about exercise on this here exercise blog, but the streak ends tonight, mostly because I don’t want to write about Roman Polanski. I took the last two weeks off from exercise. I didn’t really take them off, but due to scheduling conflicts and old fashioned laziness, the sessions were truncated. I ran a couple of times and my performance, or lack thereof, discouraged me, but after today I’m chalking my epic fail up to the heat. I did my back and an hour on the elliptical yesterday, and I did my shoulders and five and a half miles on the dreadmill today. I ran because I think the elliptical is putting a weird strain on my ankles. I was surprised at how well I ran since I had spent almost an hour lifting. The whole sixty minutes I cruised. I’m in better shape than I thought. I was surprised that I did anything at all. After yesterday my back was beyond sore. I ache from the back of my knees to the bottom of my neck. I struggled through every lift I did: my shoulders, my traps and my triceps. But it’s all worth it because I’m losing weight and being healthy. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about fitting into clothes that I haven’t been able to fit into for more than two years, and it’s happening. I have a stupid compliance meeting that I have to show up for tomorrow. It’s screwing up my schedule, but I’m getting repeated emails with words like “required” and “mandatory”. I hope I can squeeze in a session. Tomorrow is legs and I don’t know what I’m going to do. As sore as I am, and it’s going to be worse tomorrow morning, I’m thinking about skipping the weights and the running/elliptical, and jumping in the pool. I don’t know why I think swimming in cold water is going to be good for sore muscles, but it can’t hurt any more than squats and leg presses, and it’s more triathlon-centric. I don’t know. I do know that except for the excruciating pain, I feel great.