I woke up this morning a bit dilapidated. There’s a bruise on my knee in technicolor (seriously, it goes from yellow to purple and everything in between) and a string of bruises up the left side of my ribs from little struggling baby knees bumping against me while I ran . Additionally, I’m working with a practically useless left arm from where I carried the Bear’s entire weight while running. (The other arm was busy balancing, holding my skirt up, and carrying a purse.)
However, for whatever reason, the feeling of being so sore I can barely move reminds me of the summers of all-day training and conditioning we used to do when I played high school volleyball and - as sick as I know this sounds - I really kind of miss that painful evidence of accomplishment. There were days at college-based volleyball training camps when I would set a chair in the dorm’s shower stall and just sit there, half-conscious until my roommate woke me up for dinner. Still, though, there was always that great feeling of strength and even whining about our pain made us feel productive in a shared strength of sorts. (”Oh my God, look at this bruise.” “That’s insane! I have to go get my ankle wrapped from the sprain last week; it’s still purple and capillary-burst-y around the bones.”)
It kind of sounds like a weird way to want to get back into a real, self-challenging exercise regimen for the first time in 8-ish years. And I say “real, self-challenging” because I’ve always been a bit of a cardio junkie in that I feel like I could live on a treadmill (although most days the challenge is just actually getting on one. Once I cross that bridge, I’m fine.) but I never have much tolerance for weights and resistance training, even though I loved the after-effects from when I did. Which is what I’m being reminded of today.
So I’m going to see what I can do ’bout that.
I will note, however, that I’m mostly surprised that none of my lower-body is sore from running weirdly in flat, support-less flip-flops. My bottom half might be oversized, but at least it’s justified.
Monday, 17. August 2009
I’m the same way! Once I get out there (or on there, if we’re talking about a treadmill), I can run for hours. Just don’t want to lift heavy things. I mean, why would you? That’s not fun.
Thursday, 20. August 2009
I’m a cardio junkie and, while I always loathed the actual process of doing off-season weight training for high school volleyball, I loved the feeling afterwards and the resulting effects it had on my tone and shape. Frankly, I prefer the Michelle Obama arms look to my regular, turkey-leg arms. But again, getting there sucks.