Here were my workouts for last week:
Monday- Rest
Tuesday- 5km run
Wednesday- Wednesday weights workout
Thursday- 9.3km run
Friday- Rest
Saturday- Friday weights workout
Sunday- 11.5km run
Please note I refer to my weights workouts as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I rarely ever complete them all on their appropriate days. Monday's workout actually happened the Sunday before.
Before I get into today's topic of stress relief, I want to share my Friday workout regime progress, since I haven't done that one yet. I actually just upped a bunch of weights in this workout last weekend so yay! Progress!
Ok, so onto stress. Many people have this crazy notion that I handle stress well, and in some cases I think that is true as I work well under pressure and I can be pretty go-with-the-flow when it comes to plans with friends (anyone who has heard the tale of Europe 2008 can attest to this!). However, when I DO get stressed, I am simply a mess. My heart is racing, I can't concentrate, I can't eat (and have been known to lose a lot of weight rapidly if the stress isn't cured), and I can't sleep. I am basically an irritable wreck and generally my stress is caused by situations out of my control, so I can't do anything about fixing the cause of it.
Thursday was like that. After a pretty quiet week at work some stuff went down on Thursday that was BAD and I didn't know if it could be fixed. I work in a really small office of 3 people so when stuff goes wrong it is generally directly related to my job and I am very invested in my work and take pride in it, so this sucks. Thursday evening I was so grumpy over this stressful event and the last thing I wanted to do was spend 5 hours at home stewing over it and making myself more stressed.
So I ran 9.3km. I cannot express to you how much joy I have in my life now that I have running. My stress melted away as I pounded the pavement. I went over the problems in my mind and suddenly they didn't seem so bad as I could clearly work out all the outcomes and plan how to react to them. I also tired myself out and was able to sleep soundly that night. It was glorious!
For some reason running just takes away all distractions and I can work through an issue with such a clear mind. I do my best thinking while I am out there. I don't worry about timing and I take walking breaks, and it sure took my a long time of training to be able to even run long enough to sort out a major problem, but I am soooo happy I have this outlet! I really have to recommend a good workout to relieve stress. It really gets your mind off of things.
As for the work problem, it ended up being satisfactorily solved before lunch the next day and all that stress was for nothing (which, to be honest, happens 9 times out of 10, but I can't seem to stop stressing in the first place!).
Another bonus? Check out these developing muscles! I just noticed this definition line the other day.
Please ignore my monster sized feet :) Oh, and my new mirror makes me look like Olive Oyl...my calves are normal-sized.
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