Workouts Make Everything Better

I need an escape to the pain cave.

Tonight's workout will be my saving grace. I've had plenty of bad 24-hour periods where it feels like nothing is going right from the clock turning to quickly to emails going unanswered and my tiny computer-screened office world just felt a little smaller. You could even say that I had a bad week in July 2010 (how could I forget?) when I disappeared from Fit-Ink to tend to a broken air-conditioner during the hottest week of the summer, search for my wedding ring after it slipped off into Lake Michigan during an open water swim--learned my lesson to never wear it near the water ever again!--and thought I was going to severely hurt myself should I have opted into racing Ironman 70.3 Racine with a threat of thunderstorms and heat working against me.


I crave workouts on a regular basis--in fact, this craving is probably too closely related to causing that stress fracture I whined about for most of last year. But tonight, I'm craving my bike workout more than usual. By no means will it be easy, trust me, they hardly ever are when they're created especially for you and the numbers you produce on a power meter (more on that sometime in the near future). It's an hour away from the computer--bonus!--but it's also my time to forget the randomness that made me think the past 24 hours were more bad than good. And when I get off the bike in an hour--more like 90 minutes from now since I still have to finish typing this, change and set up my house of pain--I'm hoping to step foot into a more positive 24-hour period. It might be wishful thinking now, but I can at least start off optimistic.

If you can bear with the randomness, here's what I'm hoping will be long forgotten during my sweat session:

• Bachelor Ben being stupid enough to likely choose Courtney as his bride. Guilty pleasure, I know, but I can't help it I was lured in by Ben's sense of adventure (like the skiing down a San Francisco street) and trips to Park City and Switzerland. Thank goodness I was in the pool during last night's episode of The Bachelor because I was able to fast forward through the parts that leave me wondering what he sees in her and not Nicki, Kacie or Emily.
• The lack of hot water in my apartment last night. Not good when you still needed to defrost dinner, run the dishwasher, do laundry, and take a shower to wash the chlorine of your body (had I known, I would have showered before leaving the gym).
• A fiasco at the post office that left me utterly frustrated with this government agency. Here's to hoping my envelope actually arrives where it needs to go instead of conveniently getting "lost" in the mail.
• The snow that's hitting the mountains that I can't ski this week. It's funny how weather works: I'm usually in Colorado this final week of February that stretches into the start of March, not seeing much snowfall while there. This year, the trip got postponed and sure enough, Lake Tahoe, Utah and Colorado--all spots that I could be skiing at--are going to get hammered. What's worse was looking at the weather forecast for Vail and Deer Valley and seeing snow predicted until Sunday.

Sometimes you need a workout. It just makes everything better whether you've had a bad day, you're cranky or you need an energy boost. Do you know what I mean?