Day 6 of 16: "Champions Are Made When No One is Watching."

Dear Boys and Girls,

Day 5. I can't even recall it, so I'll start this blog post with day 6, today.

I slept 9 hours and 15 minutes, barely woke up in time to walk the dogs and get ready for a 9 o'clock phone meeting. Oops. I guess I missed my morning cardio session. For the past month or so, since I've been training extra hard, I've been allowing my body to sleep as long as it needs. Yes, it's a luxury. I've been off from school, but if I weren't, I'd just go to sleep at 9 to make sure that I would get at least seven hours in.

Sleep is so important when you're training hard. I wish I could go into the details of how your body needs to repair itself during sleep, but I can't. I just know that it's good for you, and like an obedient student, I do what I know is best for me. So: I slept.

But, man, today, despite or maybe because of the 9 hours of sleep, I felt like I was in a dream-like state all day. A fog. I could not shake the sleepiness off of me. I dragged through my resistance workout, but showed up nonetheless. While doing hammer curls, I saw the silver lining: my abs popping through. Yea, despite the sleepiness, today is just as crucial as every other day. Every day counts.

Being sleepy all day was almost a good thing. It allowed me to relax and ironically, focus on my work, instead of on BRINGING IT like a madwoman. I guess my sleepiness was my body's message to me: Barbie, you need to chilllllllll out. So, I did.

After what turned out to be a super productive day (and perfect eating!), I was beat. I really didn't want to hit cardio tonight, but I did. The phrase that a facebook friend posted on my page kept repeating itself in my head: "Champions are made when no one is watching." So, I grabbed my ipod with the same five songs, and headed to the gym in the basement.

Within 2 minutes, I felt like a champ. It wasn't the endorphins, I don't think. It was the fact that I showed up to my own party where I was the only guest.

It's almost 1opm, I'm feeling more awake than I did all day. Ain't that something? :) But, oh well. Yes, today was a good day and maybe it really is the endorphins talking, but I think tomorrow is going to be even better.

Bring it!
Barbie, PhD