mind over matter

This exercise thing is going way better than I would have hoped. I was thinking about it today as a way to keep myself motivated, and this is the scoreboard so far.


Twelve pounds down - and redistributed somehow.


I'm up to running three and a half miles at a time, and it's actually not been bad. I'm slow, but I get there. Three days a week I meet a friend at the gym and we keep each other honest. It's also good because we're switching up what we do, which keeps me from getting bored.


My ankle is doing great. Thank god. The first day I ran, I iced it and popped a handful of Ibuprofen but it never even twinged. I'm still hyper vigilant, but it hasn't been a bit of an issue.


The big one is that I just feel better. More energy, calmer, sleep like a rock. These are all very good things.


The first weekend in March I'm running a St. Patrick's Day 5K with a lot of co-workers as a charity fundraiser. It's the first organized run I've ever done, and I'm still not quite sure how I got roped into it. I'd never realized how Type A some of the people I work with are, and there's a lot of pride on the line here. There are a bunch of us who are just hoping and praying that we can drag our sorry bodies over the finish line in less than ten hours. On the other hand, any race that ends in a bar can't be all bad. Green beer and all.


Today I did a one hour power weightlifting class that makes me shake with fear at the thought of getting out of bed tomorrow morning. This will not be pretty. It's already ugly tonight. Where the hell did I put the Ibuprofen?


This is the physical - and final - component of the emotional cleanse I've been immersed in for the last year. All the bad crap has been raised to the surface, and now all I have to do is flush it completely out of my system. For good. Every drop of sweat is healing in an oddly profound way. I feel like a million bucks.


Until tomorrow morning.