Thursday, March 19, 2009

Fight Gone Bad, or The Beauty of Endorphins.

I believe most of my readership (my vast readership) understands the beauty of exercise. But, I will share the story of my day anyway. Today was not one of my better days. Please allow me a little whining......

First of all, I didn't really sleep very well last night. For some reason my brain decided it was a good idea to wake up and worry about nothing or nothing worth worrying about for a good hour or two.

Secondly (and here I will hit great whining heights and perhaps even reach old person moaning about physical problem status), I have all kinds of crazy injuries that are making life very uncomfortable. I will start from the head and work my way down. I have had a headache for about two weeks now. I believe it is some type of minor sinus infection that doesn't want to leave. Then there is my neck. About a week ago I tweaked my neck running, and IT HURTS. And it's spread to my trapezius muscles on either side of my neck and is starting to hurt in my shoulders as well. Then I gave some blood yesterday and some post blood giving weight lifting created a nice bruise on the puncture site. Strange pain in my right wrist. And finally, I wore a fancy pair of shoes the other day (yes Michael, red shoes) and ended up walking a lot. The straps on the shoes produced two huge gouges, one in each ankle. Both of which are getting worse because I keep running. Yes whine whine whine, but I am kind of in constant pain at the moment.

And thirdly, work. My job has gotten a little more manageable in the last couple months. I am getting a handle on the new jobs and am not feeling as stressed out. Usually, I only have to deal with one or two of my jobs per day. And usually the managerial tasks are limited. Sometimes, every thing is running smoothly and I actually feel like a competent, productive manager. But sometimes, like today, I ended up having to practice my manager skills in all three jobs. And sometimes none of them are going well, my decision making feels poor or juvenile, and I feel like a total sham being pulled in way too many directions.

So was my day. But tonight was Fight Gone Bad. Fight Gone Bad is only a 15 minute workout. I had never done it, but I had heard it spoken of in awe. There are five exercises. You do all of them for one minute, moving straight from one to the next without stopping. After each set, you get a minute rest. For those interested, the exercises are push press (pushing a bar w/ some weight on it over your head, rowing, wall ball (throwing a medicine ball up a wall), sumo high pulls (something involving heavy kettle bells) and box jumps (yes, jumping on a box). I usually don't go to Crossfit on Thursdays, but despite my pain, I had been planning on it, and even looking forward to this extra pain all week. (Though, I must say, given all my injuries, I was really thinking it was a stupid idea.)

So, I cut a boring meeting short (okay, it ran 20 minutes over and all I did was not let it run any longer), left work a little early, popped some aspirin, braved Sounders traffic, and headed off to crossfit. And let me just say, the workout HURT. It was hard, but after it was over, I felt injury free, cleared headed, and content for the first time all day! The beauty of endorphins. They have worn off a bit, but it was a good workout! And turned my day upside down. Now to maintain.........

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