Extra hard workout today

For the last month or so, since my health-conscious little brother (training to be a nurse) showed me how to use the gym at my office, I've been doing a daily workout routine mid-afternoon. This used to mean run on the treadmill until the calories burned counter hit 100. That usually means running at 6mph for 0.6mi at a 4% incline. Follow that up with a light freeweight and benchpress routine. That's enough to hit reset on my focus and get back to work, refreshed. I used to eat a chocolate bar to achieve the same result. Sometimes I still do.

Today I put on a change of clothes for the first time; working in sweaty jeans and commingling aromas with my coworkers is not all that pleasant. I reset the treadmill and started to run; but something was different today. I was running and running but the calories burned counter was just not moving that fast. I set the incline to 5%, I ran 1/2 mph faster, and still the counter just crept up, surely but slowly. Did someone change the machine?

Sometimes things change and you don't know why. That's when you get pushed, so I stuck with the goal and kept running. The treadmill became hot under my feet. My body became hot but instead of exhausted I became energized. I ran for 16 minutes and 2 miles before finally that counter crept up to a hundred. I'll spare you the details of the rest of my workout but it was only appropriate to double up the effort all around.

It felt really, really good.