Chapter Three - In Which Our Heroine Realizes She Needs to Post a Bit More Often

So I believe I may have figured out why I hit that ever-looming wall so damn hard this week: I'm not a runner.

Yes, I know the phrase "no shit, Sherlock" comes to mind, but bare with me. I'm not a runner. So OBVIOUSLY I don't know how to train like a runner. I found out I wasn't running upright (which brought to mind visions of me running with my knuckles dragging on the ground), and also, I wasn't stretching properly. And by properly I mean at all.

So I stood up straight just like Mamadukes has always told me to, and began stretching much more intensely before every run. Things have been fine since. At least with the running.

The weight training on the other hand, well, that's another story. Usually weight training is not really a problem for me. In fact, I quite enjoy weight training, much more so than cardio, which I'm sure I've made clear is the bane of my existence. Well, I've been training with Elyssa at her apartment gym a lot lately. She lives in an exclusive Aventura high-rise with a pretty bad-ass in-house gym. The other day I decided that I would venture out of the realm of upper body strength machines and low number free weights and use a complicated-looking cable and pulley system that has been looming from the far wall of the gym since I started training.

Now don't get me wrong, I've seen said contraption at other gyms before, namely at Agustina's apartment gym. However, there is a notoriously good-looking tattooed guy who infuriatingly hogs said machine and makes all kinds of ridiculous grunting noises and slams the weights down. I hate him. He has these teeny tiny little legs, and a disproportionately large upper body... probably because he literally spends hours upon hours hogging this cable pulley contraption.

Anydamnway, I decided to use the cable pulley system at Elyssa's gym. I've used this machine before, mostly for tricep work, but there were some other exercises I had seen the machine used for that I was pretty eager to try. One involved bringing the pulleys from behind me to in front of me, and in essence working my entire arm, chest, and upper back. Well, I obviously thought that I was stronger than I really am, because the minuscule amount of weight I was attempting to move was way more than I am actually capable of lifting. I knew almost immediately when I felt a burning, ripping sensation in my right upper chest that I was wrong about how strong I was. I kind of ignored it, lessened the weight, and suffered through the rest of the workout.

The next day, I realized I had met my match in that damn pulley machine. I desperately tried to swim Saturday morning, like I usually do on cross-training days. Yeah, right. I got about ten minutes worth of that done before I almost threw up from pain. I lumbered around the house all day today, massaging it and Icy Hot-ing the crap out of it. I knew there was no way I would be able to run today. It's feeling much better now, so I'm going to have to combine my four-mile run scheduled for today with my strength training tomorrow.

Ask for me on Tuesday and you shall find me a grave girl.