Day 5 - So Tired (19.18 miles total)

I really didn't want to walk today.

No, that's not a picture of me, but I think I was in that exact pose this morning before I got out of bed.

Yesterday's walk was so late in the day that by the time I got home and ate dinner and finished blogging about my walk, it was an hour after when I should have gone to bed.  My alarm went off and I just laid there for about 10 minutes.  And then I thought about my goal of 7 days.  It's really not THAT big a goal.  It would be really lame for me to give up at day 5.  I mean, it wouldn't exactly be giving up if I hadn't gone to the gym to walk.  Mark had offered to walk with me in the evening since he wasn't able to go to the gym this morning, but I feared that if I waited until later we'd find some excuse to not walk - too tired, too sore, too something.  I figured the only way to really make sure I did it would be to get up and go to the gym in the morning.

So I went for the elliptical again.  The big toe on my right foot is sore from yesterday's walk (maybe I *DO* need new shoes), and I figured the elliptical would cause less foot-impact.  I went thinking I would just do 2.74 miles.  I closed my eyes, listened to music, and secretly wondered if it would be physically possible to fall asleep while using the elliptical.  (If other people can sleep walk, could I sleep exercise?  Or would I fall off the machine?. . . . I'd probably fall off the machine.)

Anyway when I finally got to 2.74 miles, I slowed down a bit.  Then my brain started saying. . . "Did you REALLY go 2.74 miles?  There's no way you can go twice as fast when you're just walking, but you go twice as fast on the elliptical.  Is it the same? Or is it like a bicycle, where you cover a bigger distance because you're on wheels?  It's not like there's an easy real-life equivalent of the elliptical machine.  It's not like anyone says,  'Oh, I'm going to go out for an elliptical stroll this afternoon.' Or 'Let's go for an elliptical ride.'"  I suddenly feared that if I stopped, I wouldn't have gotten in the same amount of exercise.  So I decided to push through to 5.48 miles, giving myself a mental pep talk the entire time.  Assuring myself that the first 2 miles seem to be the hardest and that if I just keep going I'll feel better later.  I hope I was right.

Day 5: 5.48 elliptical miles (19.18 miles total)