Day 10: Pushing through it!

It's official, I have my first real "sports related" owie. Somehow I've developed this blister type of thingy on the back side of my ankle. Actually I'm not sure what to call the location, but here is a picture. It doesn't hurt or anything although I think that it is pretty cool. I want to bust it, but if I do that, then I think that it will start to hurt.

Today was a hard workout. I woke up on time, but didn't get out of the bed and ended up falling back to sleep. I woke up at 6:00am (which is the time that I'm supposed to be at the track) so I jumped up, put clothes on and left. Although track time was pretty intense for me at this stage of the game, I found it to be more mental than physical. I had to constantly tell myself that I can do this. Tiffany did a great job too of constantly encouraging me, but I had to quote scripture in between my breathing to push through. It went something like this - inhale for two beats silently and then on the exhale make the declaration

Inhale Inhale
Exhale - I can do
Inhale Inhale
Exhale - All things
Inhale Inhale
Exhale - Through Christ
Inhale Inhale
Exhale - Who strengthens me

I'm a musician at heart, so if something is put to music, I'l get it. Instead of doing a lot of walking, we'd jog a straight and walk a curve or walk a straight and jog a curve. I really wanted to give up, but I couldn't, I had to push through the physical feelings and the mental thoughts that aren't helpful in accomplishing the overall goal. Tiffany said before to "Walk with Purpose" and I'd remind myself of that when I wanted to put my head down or slow down to a snails pace (didn't do that great every time, but it helped). Since I have a purpose behind what I'm doing, I have to constantly remind myself even when I don't feel like it. It turns out that at the end of the session although I only went 3.57 miles, I shaved a full minute off of the time that it takes me to do a mile. So instead of 16 minutes and 44 second, today I did a mile in 15 minutes and 34 seconds. That's pretty good! I wanted to go to the gym this evening, but things didn't really work so that I could. Personally I'm a little disappointed, but maybe God did it that way so that I wouldn't go and overdo it.

I'm grateful that tomorrow is a rest day from getting up early. No track date tomorrow, but I am going to go to the gym after work. I want to honor my commitment with passion and consistency, so I have to go for a little while and do something.

Although I'm doing pretty good with drinking the necessary amounts water - the funny thing is that I can tell a difference in my skin and digestive system as a result of drinking all of this water - I didn't do too well with the eating today. Part of that is because I didn't bring my food with me since I was going to be out and about for most of the day. You know what, it really wasn't that bad. I had popcorn at the movies and part of a slushy. Outside of that, everything was on point as far as the food is concerned.

The MOST blower part of today was the fact that my Nike+ Sports Band went bad. It wouldn't upload the data from today or yesterday's Track Date. I called Nike and the only thing that they could do was send me another one, but that would take 4 to 6 weeks! Who has time for that? By six weeks, I'd really like to be able to jog a full two miles and I'd like to be able to track everything. But the GREAT thing was that I took it back to The Sports Authority (where I purchased it) and they did an even exchange. Nike said that they wouldn't do it, but I am so grateful that they did.

My neck still hurts from that class yesterday, so it's really great that I'll be able to sleep in tomorrow. Hopefully it will get better really soon. Now I'm off to do homework!