Another tough workout. Actually the workout itself wasn’t the hard part. The hard part was waking up at 4:45am. Even though I went to sleep early (around 9:30pm), I woke up at about 1am and couldn’t go back to sleep until after 2pm. It’s been really hot.

When my alarm went off I automatically and instinctively shut it off because I was in such a deep sleep. A little while later I started dreaming and woke up directly from my dream. It was already 5:10am so I ran through my routine. Still tired and groggy. Water. Coffee. Wash my face. Put on gym clothes. No sit ups because I was running late. grabbed my stuff and headed out the door.

Got to the gym at 5:40am. Today was a cardio day. But I started by doing my sit ups. Then rehab work on my shoulder and hip. Then a half hour of treadmill. The first 20 minutes I started off at about 4.5mph pace and gradually increased until I was pushing about 5.3 mph. I was trying to get more than 1.65 miles in 20 minutes to beat my best so far. But I moved my phone and accidentally hit the “cool down” button. For a second I was upset because I was going to beat it, but I didn’t. And I had no way of proving that I would have.

Then I thought to myself… this just gives me the opportunity to chase something else. I can run 1 mile in under 10 minutes, haven’t been able to do that yet since I started training again. And that’s something I used to do on a regular basis before I stopped training a few years back.

So I visualized that I was in a race and had fallen (pressing the button) and now I had to get back up and chase down the person that passed me. In this case that “person” was going to run the next mile in 10 minutes. So to beat this “person” I had to run at a clip that would allow me to finish a mile in under 10 minutes.

I started off at a pace that was about 10-20 seconds slower than what I needed. So I kept ramping up the speed! The most challenging thing was that I wanted to do this all while keeping my breathing under control and not exhaling through my mouth. Worked for a while as I cut the distance. I got it down to being only about 5 seconds off the pace to win. Pushed it harder. Got it to a point where I was 10 seconds ahead! But after that I was breathing hard and had to exhale through my mouth. I was able to relax and keep that pace up for the last four minutes.

I ended up finishing 1 mile in 9 minutes and 47 seconds!

I did it. Proud of myself. It was hard but I pushed through. Then 15 minutes on the elliptical. Weighed myself, 205lbs. Looks like I’m not dropping the weight as fast this week. It’s all good. I just got to keep moving in the right direction. Keep my routine going and keep building my habits.

Walked back home. Drank water. Had green eggs and no ham. Green eggs are just sauteed spinach in scrambled eggs. Decaf. Shave. Shower. Get dressed. Write. Out the door. See ya!