Exercise Makes Everything Better

Exercise makes everything better.

My first day of March this year consisted of working my regular 9:00 - 5:00, coming home to dinner on the table (thanks to my wonderful husband), a great workout, a little house cleaning, and a little blog reading. It is 10:00 p.m. at the moment, and I am feeling amazing! My legs have that warm liquid feeling that can only be acquired after a decent cardio workout. My house is relatively clean, and my day feels complete. I know that I wouldn't feel as satisfied and wonderful as I do right now if I hadn't exercised. Working out gives me a sense of accomplishment and it boosts my mood! Also, it really helps me get some decent sleep at night. I can already feel that I am going to sleep like a baby tonight!

Me, pre-workout, in my amazing panda hat that my friend gave me.

Before I go to sleep, I wanted to share the amazing workout that I had tonight. I completed Week 2 Day 2 (W2D2) of the Couch to 5K Program (C25K) program. For those of you who haven't heard of this before, you can find more information out about it at coolrunning.com. I also downloaded the podcasts and listen to that through my iPhone as I workout. W2D1 consists of a brisk five-minute warmup walk. After the walk, you alternate 90 seconds of jogging and two minutes of walking for a total of 20 minutes. I'm going to break down my experience from this evening for my own future reference, below:

I went out for my run at about 7:45 p.m. It was dark and about 36 degrees outside. There was barely any wind, and it was a nice cool evening.

Warm Up (5 minute brisk walk) - felt good, excited to try my first 90 minute interval of jogging
Interval One - Out of breath when I was finished. It took the entire two  minutes of walking to regain stable breathing.
Interval Two - Feeling the same effects from Interval One.
Interval Three - This interval felt so much better. I could breath more evenly throughout the 90 seconds and recovered much more quickly during the two minutes of walking afterward.
Interval Four - This interval was similar to Interval Three, although, a little more tough.
Interval Five - I do not know what happened during this Interval, however, it was my worst interval throughout the workout. I wasn't ready to start, I still had some breath to catch, and I was literally counting down the seconds in my head until I was to be finished jogging.
Interval Six - I wasn't expecting this to be my last interval, but as soon as I figured that out, I just "went for it". This interval was similar to Interval Four and wasn't very hard at all.
Cool Down (5 minute brisk walk) - I almost skipped this, but I am glad that I didn't. I could feel my legs becoming more loose as I walked, and I completely regained my normal breathing pattern by the finish of this walk.

C25K W2D1 was a success! I am going to work this program as far as I can before my first 5K on April 28th! I'm excited, nervous, and pretty impressed with myself for trying something so new to me. This adventure has me feeling amazing, and I am starting to crave exercise, again! As I said in the beginning of the post... exercise just seems to make everything better! Especially my mood!