No way!

So I didn’t do any exercise between Saturday and yesterday, and felt all icky as a result. To be fair I just haven’t had time – with all the stress lately I’ve been battling to focus and get my work done.

To add to that it seems that people realised that I was leaving soon and we’ve had a steady stream of people in the lab. I would be annoyed but they were all people I wanted to see. And as much as several hours discussing the biological and psychological implications of studying the paranormal/supernatural was probably a giant waste of time, I’m pretty sure that in some small way my life was enriched as a result! I guess it all falls into enjoying the university experience as a whole, rather than being too focussed.

Anyway back on topic, last night after dinner I decided to go off to the gym. It was awesome! I should stop going more often! Basically I cycled and almost died (it seems I can run OR cycle, but developing both sets of muscle just doesn’t happen) and then I figured I’d do a short run, just to give the other muscles a reminder as to their existence. I have also been having really nasty dreams (and insomnia) lately so I figured exhaustion could help my situation somewhat (It didn’t really as I wound up dreaming that I had to put on makeup in an abattoir before going goth clubbing in fieldwork clothes…).

So I ran a little bit and thought ‘hey! this is supposed to be a sprint, why is it so easy?'’ so I ran a little bit faster. And faster. and faster. I was tired, but I kept doing things like wondering if I could do one  more minute, or run at a steeper incline, or actually max out the treadmill speed-wise (almost! I think it maxes out at 15km/h and I was going at 14.2 but that involved sprinting and gasping and stitches after a very little while). and before I’d noticed it I had finished the 20 minute thing and I was all hyped up to run further.

So I did. Admittedly, I was listening to Trivium which is so energetic I had to keep going, but before I knew it I had run about 30 % further than normal!

I think that’s what I love the most about the whole gym thing. Those random moments when you realise that those scary things aren’t so bad after all! Like doing a shoulder-balancey thing in Pilates, or cycling an extra 10 km, or actually doing a pull-up (I almost did one the other day! the friendly body-builders were very supportive!).

And now I must go and pack the big scary 4x4 and get it home before tai chi!

Oh, and this is officially my favourite music video ever (right now!) the song is awesome too!