Back at it

I've only exercised once in the past week. That's pretty bad for me, but at least now I know how Beth feels all the time.

Since I haven't done anything since the 8k on Saturday, I was pretty set on getting to the gym tonight, even though I had dinner plans in the city after work. I left my house a few minutes earlier than usual (I usually leave at about 6:45) to leave my gym bag in the locker room before getting on the train to go to work. That ended up working out pretty well, since going home before the gym just gives me an excuse to not go to the gym, and this way I didn't have to make that extra stop.

Of course, I figured I'd get right back into the swing of things with a run. Well, technically, it was more like a beer, most of a pulled pork sandwich, some fries, a chicken tender I stole off my nephew's plate, and a run. I'm trying to be really careful with the whole minor-Achilles-tendinitis thing, so I stretched my lower legs out a lot and did my usual warm-up walk. I started the run off at 6.1 mph with 1% incline, and made it...exactly .24 miles. Yes, that's right. Less than a quarter of a mile. I started getting shots of pain in both of my legs and had to hit the stop button.

Impressive, right?

But I'm a stubborn guy, and I wanted to do 5 miles. So I stretched out the legs again, did a really short walk to get back into it, and then started the run over, this time at only 6.0 mph and no incline. After a few minutes, I realized that I now find 6.0 mph to be entirely too slow and boring, so I went up to the 6.1 I was originally planning on and put the incline back on. By the time I hit 5 miles, I had spent the first half of the run at 6.1, the third quarter at 6.3, a mile at 6.5, and the last quarter mile from 7.0 to 8.0. I finished up in about 48 minutes.

That felt a lot better.

About 3 miles in, some girl who clearly knew me walked by my treadmill, smiled at me, and waved. I waved back and spent the next 2 miles trying to figure out who the hell she was. I still don't know, but I think she might have gone to high school with me.

Hopefully I'll have time to get some exercise in tomorrow, but I also need to finish up a couple of applications that I've been working on for the past three days. Never apply to take a Bar exam. Filling out the application is entirely too much work for entirely too little payoff.