As I type this, my eyelids are starting to close on their own. It's 0630, and I'm DONE with my workout. This is insane. It's been reaching 100 deg here the last couple of days, and muggy. I started taking a spin class and decided to try the morning class. Yesterday I got there at 0520 thinking it started at 0530. No, even crazier, it starts at 0515. So yesterday I just did leg weights and abs on my own. Due to the heat, humidity and sitting in an office all day, I couldn't bring myself to go to the afternoon class. No motivation after sitting on my butt all day.
Being as I'm not an afternoon workout person, I hauled my butt out of bed at 0445 and made it to the gym in time for the class. I yawned all through warm-up. My body protested the rest of the workout, and as I left I couldn't wait to get to my unfinished cup of java that sat in my car. This led me to ponder something on the way home that I've never been able to explain.
Back when I was a hardcore swimmer (the good ol' days) we used to do "two-a-days". There were two ladies in the pool every morning that would kick laps on a kickboard real slow and talk the whole time. It was their social hour. In the showers afterwards, the ladies would say to my teammate and I "Don't you just feel so refreshed after a morning swim?" My face would still be beet red from the workout (takes several hours for that color to go away) and I would just smile at them. I asked my teammate if she felt "refreshed". Negative. Hmm.
Over the years, at pools and gyms around the country, I've heard the same thing. People feel so refreshed after their butt-crack-of-dawn-workout. What have I been doing wrong all these years? Do I misunderstand the meaning of the word "refreshed"? I think I can safely call myself a morning person. I'm certainly not a night person, I like to be in bed by 2100 (9pm) and I can almost never sleep past 0630. Are all these people just not pushing themselves to the point of exhaustion, like I am? I find that hard to believe too. But what would be the point in doing any workout at all if you're not going to go hard? So why on earth are these people so energized after working out? What pills are they taking?
When I think of the word "refreshed" I think of spas, massages, tropical beaches, having a good night sleep and waking up without an alarm clock, jumping in the ocean on a hot summer day. Yeah, surfing is refreshing. A mojito in the summer. When I think of "refreshed", I can honestly say slogging through the pool with my eyes half open doesn't really jump out at me. Neither does sitting in a dark room with Britney Spears booming in my ears, on a narrow bicycle seat, sweating all over the handlebars, butt and legs screaming, and the instructor calling out "push!! push it!!!". I mean really. For the past 13 years (yep, that old) I don't think I've ever once associated that word with a morning workout. Or even an afternoon one for that matter. What's going on here?
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