Thursday nights are about me.

This past fall I got into the habit of going to the gym on Thursday nights right before Grey's Anatomy started.  I'm not embarrassed to admit that it is one of my favorite TV shows and I figured that being at the gym while it aired would be motivation to stay on the piece of cardio equipment for at least an hour.  I wouldn't have to pause the TV for telephone calls, etc.  If I got tired, I could take down the intensity.  What started to happen, though, is that Thursday nights turned into the time when I was motivated to push myself. 

First it was the elliptical for an hour.  Then the treadmill for an hour.  Then increasing the speed on the treadmill.  Then even increasing the elevation on the treadmill.  Now, as I sit here (with ice on my tendons) typing this I am drenched in sweat, a bit exhausted, but endorphins are racing through my system.  I feel amazing; I almost feel like there isn't anything I can't do.  Truthfully, I don't feel the same way after the gym/workout any other day of the week.  I'm not able to push myself quite as hard any other day.  I know there is not any rhyme or reason for it and I also know it is strange.  But, at the same time, it is the way it is.  I want to bottle up this feeling and the intensity of my Thursday night workouts and save it for the upcoming half marathon and marathon. 

The realist in me knows I can't bottle this feeling and the intensity, but the dreamer in me wants to try.  The reality of what I need to do is figure out what about my Thursday night workouts makes me feel this way because life would be amazing (and my runs would be amazing) if I could feel this way all of the time.  Why Thursdays?  Maybe it is because I know that under almost no circumstance will I be bothered and it is truly the time that my only concern in the world is myself and making sure that I feel amazing after the workout?

Life is complicated.  It is fast paced and often times dog eat dog.  We can try to run and hide, but generally that doesn't work.  We are forced to deal with things we don't want to, at times we don't want to --- and sometimes for people we don't want to deal with.  We get in patterns of putting everyone before us and making excuses for doing so, almost as if we are wrong if we don't.  That is how I got to far removed from my fitness goals.  But on Thursday nights, I put all of that aside (at least for an hour) so that I can clear my head and actually put myself before the outside constraints of life.  It feels amazing.

Maybe through this post I've started to figure out why I feel so great after my Thursday night workout.  I think it is, at least in part, because on Thursday night I know that no matter what else has happened that day or that week that I'm taking the time to focus on me and focus on my goals and that nothing interrupts that.  I welcome your thoughts and suggestions about how to duplicate this feeling --- especially for May 29 and October 9.  And no, I have not had anything remotely alcoholic to drink.

Thanks for letting me wax poetic, at least until my next run.