Better Than A Cheeseburger

Every Tuesday I wake with a knot in my stomach.  This knot is partially excitement - as I know that I will start my day off with a kick-ass workout at Clay - and partially fear - as I know that I will start my day off with a kick-ass workout at Clay.

Don't get me wrong - I love nothing better than knocking out a heart-pumping, sweat-inducing, muscle-fatiguing workout with Hyam.  I don't, however, always appreciate it first thing in the morning.

Yesterday morning, however, I had a knot for a different reason. I woke to a text that said Hyam's dog was very, very sick and she was going to have to cancel. I'm a huge dog lover and I know that Hyam's dog means the world to her, so the knot started out of sympathy and fear, rather than excitement.  I also knew that sick dog or not, Hyam was NOT going to let me get off without a workout, so that knot continued to grow out of anticipation as I waited to hear from her. 

Over the next hour we determined that it would be best for me to stay home with KK, who was sick again (damn cold & flu season) and make up the session at Friday's Athletic Training class. This left me with 2 options for Tuesday - 1) allow myself to take a day off (I have been working really hard lately...) or 2) workout on my own. 

Hmmm.....what to do?

Something crazy must be in the air because by noon I could no longer stand the feeling of having not worked out and I found myself hopping on a treadmill and running for 45 minutes. What? Follow that up with several hours of hauling Christmas decorations to the attic (yes, I know it's mid-January - don't judge) and I had myself a workout!

Okay, so it wasn't exactly the workout I would've had a Clay, but I did get off my ass and burn some calories. And I ran. I RAN, people! Later in a text Hyam commended my efforts and my response was "Well, it was no personal training session with you, but it was better than a nap and a cheeseburger." Sounds funny now, but this was probably what I would've done a few months ago if given the opportunity to miss a session. I may have even added in a glass of wine.  It was my day off, after all, I deserved it, right?

It hit me later that night not only how backwards it is that I tend to reward myself on my "off days", but that just doing something - anything - is better than doing nothing at all.  Would I have benefited from a more intense workout? Definitely. But did I benefit from what I ended up doing? Fo sho.