A Tough Day

T is for Tuesday.

T is for Tough.

This week, T was for a Tough Tuesday -- and it was tough in more ways than one.

First, the day started with the most killer of all killer workouts.  It was an upper-body day at Farrell's, and it was the first week we did "super sets."  Essentially, a super set is when we burn out an entire muscle group all at once.  I promise I'll go into more details later, but it will take an entire post to discuss resistance training and the different techniques we do throughout the ten-week program, so you're just going to have to hold your horses.

While I am usually sore on resistance days, I was especially hurting after this particular workout.  It was so bad, in fact, that when we were doing cardio between sets, I couldn't even lift my arms to jab, to do jacks, to do anything.

And what makes it even worse is that I did not even get my hair wet in the shower for fear of not being able to lift my arms to wash it.  (You know what I am?  SEXY.)

That's when you know it was a good workout.

After a tough day emotionally (I'll fill you in later...maybe), I had yet another tough workout:

Source

Tuesday was our first race for See-Us Run Des Moines: the fourth annual Grand Blue Mile, a street run that kicks of the Drake Relays.  Nearly half of downtown Des Moines was shut down as more than 8,000 runners headed out for a mile-long race.

While I was sunburned and sweaty last year, this year I was freezing.  It was in the 40s, and the wind was brutal.  I did a tad worse than I did last year, but I beat my 2011 time by 13 seconds.  Considering I haven't been running at all -- and considering I had to halt my running a few times to wait for encourage my 14-year-old running buddy -- I'd say I did fairly well.  My official time was 10:04.

I know it was only a mile run, but it was a mile more than I've been running lately, and it was definitely a faster pace than I am used to -- especially in such frigid temperatures (my lungs hate the cold).  So, I'm happy with the time.

Most of all, though, I'm happy with how it made me feel.  I know I've said before how therapeutic running is, but sometimes I forget that myself.  No matter how crappy a day may be -- for whatever reason -- a good, old-fashioned run will generally make it all go away.  At least for a while.

And that's exactly what happened.