A hurtin'

I can't believe it's almost Friday and I haven't written since Monday. It's been a very busy week with class and running and work. I had intended to write during my class's midterm exam today, but the computer wasn't working.

So here I am, trying to stay awake and finding that typing is helping. (Forgive me, though, for the poor writing; I'll be lucky if I can spell correctly tonight.)

I'll begin with Monday, because it was the source of my big frustration of the week. Remember how I didn't eat outside the diet box on Sunday? Well, I did on Monday. I ate baked tortilla chips and salsa and a bunch of cheese and bread. That's about all I ate, but I ate a lot of it.

I purposely didn't weigh myself Tuesday.

But I did on Wednesday.

Up three pounds.

Really? Really?

So I was bummed I did such a stupid thing. I know I didn't eat 9,000 calories worth of chips and cheese. But my body apparently just sucks up carbs and won't let go.

I ran on Tuesday before class and felt really good, really fast, only to find out my time was about two minutes worse than last week's 3-miler. Bummed again.

On Wednesday at work, a co-worker brought me an iced coffee as a thank-you gift. I don't usually drink coffee. But it was yummy, only 80 calories, and I was tired. So I drank it all.

Needless to say, last night, as I tried to sleep, I was WIDE AWAKE. I could not sleep for hours. When my alarm went off at 7, I hit snooze a bunch and was about to cancel my before-class run and sleep instead. But I feared oversleeping and missing the midterm. So I got up. And I ran.

The first mile was slower, again, than I thought I felt. But I must've been angry at that, because the second mile was the fastest I've run in a year. Then the third was pretty good, and my overall time showed a huge improvement. It was the best pace and the best three-miler since Oct. 17, 2009. I was very, very happy.

Of course now at work, I'm a hurtin'. I knew after my run that I needed to stretch extra and ice just in case. Whenever I run faster, I end up injuring myself. So I stretched and stretched and iced before and after class.

I'm not in pain, thankfully. But I am hurtin'. It's the good kind -- the muscle soreness that lets you know you worked extra hard.

Feels good.