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Bone Tired


I'm tired.

I'm so tired. I'm writing to you sunburned, late, pooped tonight. This week I started training for the half marathon I'm running with some buddies in September. And I returned to Pilates class. Actually my Pilates instructor bumped me up a notch, so now I attend class working with people who are at a much more advanced state than I am. From the bottom rung of this class, I see how much farther I can still go.

I feel great. I hurt all over. My abs can't even help me sit up straight at the moment. And I'm bone tired.

I can hardly wait for bed. When I climb into bed I'll massage every sore muscle, muscles I can now feel right through my skin. That's something I marvel over every time I'm sore and have to massage something.

100 lbs. ago, I got sore muscles, but when I massaged them, I couldn't feel the shape of a muscle, tell its origin and ending. I can now, and I will tonight. In the morning the first thing I'll feel is my hips and legs, needing to be stretched and kneaded to get a start on my Saturday.

Everything will feel tight and firm. I've been slacking off the exercise for awhile, but after just a week back on my exercise track, I feel good, all tightened up again. Of course I have farther to go to be ready for a half marathon or to keep up with the others in Pilates, but I feel good, and neither of these things seem out of reach.

Last week, I was beginning to feel that THING. That hopeless thing that creeps into your heart and tells you the whole world is set against you being fit and healthy. This week I feel strong and in charge again.

This is the very best reward of exercise. You feel results so quickly. Your work shows up on your body right away. As the weeks go on you can feel and see yourself improve by leaps and bounds. It's fascinating stuff. It really works.

That's why I choose to track my workouts and progress in my journal. It's amazing for me to see how I've gone from not being able to run a quarter of a mile or swim a single length of a pool to finishing 8 or 9 miles at a go or swimming a mile or two, if I feel like it. It's something for me to see someone in a beginning mat class who's struggling to pick up the exercises I have forgotten were hard to learn.

And if I hadn't written it down, I would have forgotten how good it feels to be bone tired from a tough week of workouts, looking forward to a day of complete rest, and feeling a very different body under my hands than the one I've spent the past 20 years with.

By writing it down I have been able to look back to see that this progress hasn't been steady, but has come in surges and eddies. During the times of little progress, it's always been my journal, family, and friends that have reminded me that I'm capable of making great strides so long as I maintain focus and prioritize my exercise.

Need to get back on your little exercise wagon? Just start. Try doing it with a buddy and a goal. But as you do it, keep track. Write down what you did, measure your workout (how long, how much weight, how many, etc.), and write down how it felt. Was it a hard or easy workout? What hurts? What feels better? What do you feel? How did you feel when it was over, the next day?

People always want to know how much I exercise now. Well, at the moment, because I'm training for a run, I jog 5 days a week, for a half an hour to 50 minutes at a pop. I take three Pilates sessions, two mat classes, one private (working on the equipment). Two days per week of complete rest. It's not a crazy amount of exercise. But it's way, way more than I ever imagined myself capable of. It lets me eat a little more while weighing a lot less.

Tired to my bones.

Here's wishing you some tired times,

JuJu

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