Thursday May 6th Plycore: Listening to Pre!

This was the first class that I attended since I hurt my rotator cuff. I had been working out, but I avoided classes because I wanted to avoid exercises, which might cause me to put too much strain on my shoulder. I was pretty eager to take this class because I had missed it the week before. Also, I had taken Wednesday off so my legs were feeling really fresh. I arrived at the gym early and started warming up with my jump rope, and as I did, I began to think about the way I had been working out recently. I realized that I hadn't been attacking my workouts. I had just been trying to set a pace for myself that would allow me to keep up with the pace of the class and finish the workout at or about the time that class ended. However, as I jumped rope, I started feeling really focused, the music from my i-pod fit my mood perfectly, and a sense of determination took hold of me. And, I knew that I need to attack this work! Not just this workout but every workout from the very start. It will be alright if I exhaust myself halfway through the workout. In fact, that should be my goal.

Steve Prefontaine said,

"A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. "

This is how I need to work out. I don't want to injure myself, but I want to punish myself! Push myself farther and harder than I want to be pushed. If I am unwilling to do that then I am just wasting my time. So, we started out this class with two laps around the building, and normally I would hand around the middle of the pack and try not to be winded for our next exercise, but on this morning I sprinted out ahead of the rest of the class and pushed myself to run out the whole two laps. No slowing down or easing up. I was sucking wind by the time we got back inside, but I felt really good. Dizzy and maybe a little sick, but I felt good. Now, I would love to tell you that I was able to keep up that pace for the whole class and I found a new strength that I never knew was there, but life isn't like that as often as TV and movies would like us to think. By the end of class, I was wasted and nearly the last one to complete the workout, but I felt like I had worked harder than I've worked in some time.