This morning was a little different. My usual routine is to wake up at 5:20 am, say a quick prayer, then set up my ring light, fix my phone angles, put on my socks and shoes; it takes about 15–20 minutes, so I normally don’t get on the treadmill until 5:35 or 5:40.
Today, though, I woke up at 4:52 am, a few minutes before my alarm. I said my prayer and thought, let me close my eyes for a few more minutes and wake up again by 5:20. Bad move. Next thing I knew, it was 5:45. Thank God for my backup alarms; otherwise, I would’ve missed it completely.
I rushed downstairs to set up, knowing I had to be done quickly since my daughter needed to be up by 6:10 for school. I also had my daily 15-minute exercise ring to close, so I came up with what seemed like a smart shortcut: run faster.
My fastest mile so far was 11:15 at 5mph. So I thought to myself, why not push it to 6mph and finally finish under 10 minutes? But then reason kicked in; 5mph had just started feeling manageable, with my watch recording moderate effort instead of hard. Jumping all the way to 6mph didn’t feel wise. So I compromised and set it at 5.5mph, thinking it was a “reasonable” step up.
Oh, how wrong I was. The moment I started, my legs felt like bricks. I was exhausted almost immediately and ended up holding the treadmill bars most of the way. Because I wasn’t swinging my arms, my watch wasn’t even recording properly, which frustrated me even more. By the 10-minute mark, I gave in and dropped the speed back to 5mph, forcing myself to pump my arms so the watch would catch up.
Final result: 1 mile in 12:30, finishing at 6:08 am. Slower than yesterday, and I could see the exhaustion all over my face when editing the video. Who knew just a 0.5mph increase could make such a difference? If I had stayed at 5mph, I probably would’ve been faster and definitely less drained.
Lesson learned: not every “fix” is actually better. Sometimes the best thing you can do is keep going steady and trust the process. At least I still got my daughter ready on time and ticked off Day 11 ✅.
Accountability Screenshot 📸
