A Promise to Myself

New year, new start, right? So far so good, in a lot of respects, in others, not so much. For example, I'm having a hard time NOT procrastinating. I guess after what was effectively two weeks off (part of it happy, the last couple of days not so much--funerals suck save for the fact that at the very, very least (and it's cold comfort) you get to see family you haven't seen in a while), it's pretty hard to get serious about work on the first full day back. Oh well. I should be getting my second wind any time now.

While I'm waiting around on that, however, I figured I'd blog a little, since it's been a while. I was going to post my New Year's resolutions, and I probably still will, but I'll save that for later. The only resolution relevant at the moment is the one that states that this year, I will keep my promises to myself. With that in mind, I figured I'd talk about my workout this morning. I haven't done much of anything since Worlds (8 months of long course duathlon training took it out of me), you know, jogged a little, lifted weights once or twice. I finally got my front tire fixed weekend before last and put my Bianchi pedals back on the Bianchi and got new ones for Bike, but I still haven't ridden. However, with Striders (long course) coming up in less than four months, I decided it was time to get serious. Besides which, I miss the discipline of working hard for something.

So I set the alarm for 3:40 a.m. (which allowed me to hit the snooze button twice) and was up just before 4 a.m. I put on the clothes I'd laid out last night (my gym bag was already in the trunk of the car) and headed over to Lifetime to lift weights and then do a 5:30 a.m. spin class.

Weights...I suck. I am such a pantywaist. I have zero upper body strength (didn't do legs today, saving that for tomorrow). I could only do 10 lbs. on the incline press machine. Ten. That's it. I suppose the good news is, I have plenty of room for improvement.

Spin class...I have no idea what my maximum heart rate is. I know the formula is something minus your age, but I've always thought the resulting number was too low for me. So I just settled on something that felt about right and went with it. Man, have I lost a lot of fitness since October. I had a hard time coming out of the saddle for any length of time. I guess I have some work to do. Still, the class went fine. One thing I learned from training this past summer is that I'm capable of pushing myself much harder and for much longer than I ever thought I could. It sounds silly, but that's what I focused on during spin class, and I think it made the workout difficult and painful, but in a really good way.

I'm working from Jeff's office today off 360 and Bee Caves, and I brought my running stuff. I'm wide awake and feeling pretty perky right now, so I think once 6 p.m. rolls around, I might head over to Pecos or something and squeeze in three miles. I'm committing to myself right now that I'll get up in the morning and go lift (legs this time) and if I don't run in the morning, I'll get my run in while everyone's doing their quality workout tomorrow night. I haven't done the H&B in a long time, and that's sounding really good about now.

So there you go, a promise made to myself, and a promise kept. Here's to a repeat performance tomorrow (and the next day and the next day and the next day...).