Angry? Wait for the endorphins to kick in!
Posted On Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at at 8:56 PM by MTB ManI woke up this morning a little late, about 5:20.
And I could have slept a little longer too.
I got angry because of it. Here's why:
1. I went to bed early (10:30 instead of 11 or later) so that I would be more rested and able to get up earlier (not later). (That may be a sleep cycle thing. Because of the change in sleep pattern, getting up at 5 as usual would have been in the middle of a deep sleep phase.... perhaps.)
2. I had a training day. I was supposed to do a ride (hopefully 1 hour) but because of freezing rain outside I would need to do it in the gym in the AM. I couldn't do the ride on my lunch hour not only because of the ice outside but because I had an appointment which would take up my allotted lunch time.
3. so because i got up "late", I would not have time to have my usual 2 leisurely cups of coffee, go to the gym, get ready for work and get to work on time (8:30).
I had my one cuppa but then in my anger I said to myself "bag work". I'll do the full workout and get to work late and deal with it.
Then when I went out to the car to go to the gym, I had to scrape a 1/4" of ice off of all the windows in addition to kicking the door to get it to open.
Angry.
At the gym I started my workout on the upright stationary bike.
My right knee was still hurting ("tweaky") as it was yesterday and my left knee was stiff so I warmed up slowly.
According to the specs of the training ride, I was supposed to keep my HR under 75%MHR. No problem! However, I think that implies that I should try to stay as close to 75% as I can.
Anyhow there was no way I was getting up to 75%MHR (132bpm) with my tweaky knee. It wasn't letting me get up to 70%. After warming up for awhile, I was able to work at about 65%MHR.
I also did 3 sets of spin ups, starting at a cadence of 60 increasing by 10 every 10 secs for a minute.
You know, after about 20 minutes I settled into a groove and I was really feeling pretty good. Knee didn't hurt at all. In fact, I was in a pretty good mood the rest of the day. Gotta be endorphins. Love those endorphins!
