Coffee Anyone?
This afternoon at about 3 o’clock I hit a wall. You know that wall well. We’ve all collided with it many a time. Your blood sugar drops, your head gets cloudy, and for some reason your eyelids do not want to separate. For me, this is siesta time!
At this point I looked at my gym bag securely hidden under my desk and started reconsidering my plan to hit up Gold’s after work. Afterall, I’ve been really good and my job has been a bit more demanding as of late so I deserve a break. These thoughts started running through my head along with the image of me snuggled up in bed watching TV. I literally had an angel dressed in workout clothes on one shoulder and a devil in PJ’s on the other…both trying to persuade me to go with their preferred plan.
In a last ditch effort to listen to the angel, I went into the office kitchen and poured myself half a cup of coffee. I figured that if I could just wake up a little I would at least make it to the gym to do weights even if I couldn’t manage my usual 30 minutes of cardio.
Let me tell ya, that coffee must have had a little something extra in it! Not only did I make it to the gym, but I ran longer and faster than usual and I upped my number of weight reps!!! I suddenly felt like super woman!
I did some research when I got home and found out that drinking caffeine before a workout can actually reduce muscle pain. According to Amy Norton’s article on qualityhealth.com, “caffeine may limit muscle pain by blocking the activity of a chemical called adenosine. Adenosine is released as part of the inflammatory response to injury and can activate pain receptors in body cells.” Apparently for me, no pain meant a lot of (good) gain today.
When I left the gym I was really glad that I managed to drag myself there. It just goes to show that if you can make the effort to get yourself out to the gym, pool, track, or trail…you never know what you can achieve once you get there.
…this is my inspirational blog for the week. 
