Off to a good start

Last night, I decided to join the early morning crowd at my gym for scheduled my cross-training. I’m back on a schedule you know. I have commitments. I have to be accountable to Coach. I set the alarm clock for 5 am, informed YaYa of my plans, and went to bed. It took a while to go to sleep. I was restless with a million or so thoughts running through my mind at any given moment. Eventually, sleep and I did find each other. We snuggled all through the night.

 

 

By 4 am, I found myself alone again with my thoughts. Fortunately, they were few. The main one revolved around my plan to go to the gym that early in the morning. I wondered if it made more sense to wait until next week, after the time change, so that the dogs would be getting up at any earlier than the usually do. I got up and changed the alarm to sound at 6 am and returned to bed. It was only a moment or two later when I finally decided that it was ludicrous to put it off. I was already AWAKE.

 

 

I changed into the clothes that I had put out, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and basically killed time until it was close enough to when the gym opened. I opted not to have coffee for fear that the some of its effects would not occur at a convenient time. As such, my body a little off kilter. I did my best to convince it that everything was just as it should be (aka “normal”).

 

 

I walked through the doors of the gym at 5 minutes before 5 am. Boy was I surprised to find all of my favorite elliptical machines full already. I opted for the ones with the arm thingamajigs. As I started up the machine, my knee woke up with at start. It complained a bit out of shock. “What ARE you doing? My knee wanted to know. “It’s just a little cross-training.” I replied, “It’s good for us.” My knee reluctantly went along with the plan and, after about 10 minutes, it warmed up to the idea. The complaining stopped. So as not to rock the boat too much, I kept the resistance low.

 

 

A few minutes later, Chris hopped on the machine beside me. He is one of two brothers who own my favorite running store. We exchanged a bit of niceness and then each returned our focus to our workouts, or at least he did. I focused on his workout too. Chris, his brother Tim, and his wife all run the Boston Marathon with regularity. If you are a customer of theirs, you know these things because it means that someone else will be helping you with your shoes if you need them any time around Patriots Day. Chris obviously knows what he is doing (or is just lucky). He worked away on the machine but did not use the arm thingamajigs. I gave his technique some thought but quickly determined that today was not the time to make my knee angry with me.

 

 

No long after, Chris’ brother Tim arrived. He was all smiles and enthusiasm. “Look who’s here.” Chris said, pointing to me. Tim and I waved at each other and I asked him how he could be so smiley that early in the morning. He just smiled — and I did too.

 

 

I was back home by 6 am to prepare for the rest of my day. It seemed odd to have not missed a beat. I made my coffee, and began to get work-ready. By our van pushed back from the driveway, I’d also done a load of laundry, ran the dishwasher, and loaded up the crock-pot with our post-football meal. I could be wrong but I think it is going to be a good day. At least my day was getting off to a good start.