That’s right, ladies and gentlemen – week one at the gym is complete. WOO HOO. Unless you’re one of my readers in Europe who hangs out on the blog with your morning coffee/tea, that is. I’d have to work out at 1:00am my time for this particular statement to be true and I’m eccentric but I’m not that eccentric, if you know what I mean. I guess you’ll just have to take it on faith that by 9:00am Eastern Standard Time I will have logged five solid workouts in the gym.

It’s okay, you can trust me on this one.

I stacked the cards in my favor since avoiding a public shellacking from blowing my workout pledge is high on my priority list. I promised the high schooler I’d drop him at school in the morning – that gave him an extra forty-five minutes of sleep each day, a treat he wasn’t exactly willing to give up once he experienced it. I choose workout clothes the night before so I can l-i-t-e-r-a-l-l-y roll out of bed and into my soon to be sweaty outfit. I linked my watch to my Are you serious about this or are you just screwing around again app so I’d get credit for my hard work.

Once I was out of bed, dressed, and in my car all that was left was steering in the right direction after school drop-off. It helped knowing BrightSide was checking on my progress before lunch ‘cuz accountability.

Did I feel like puking from nerves before walking in the first day? Sure. Was I so freaking flustered that I briefly forgot where to find the stairs? Also yes. But did I drag my groggy, anxiety ridden, introvert, been-out-of-the-gym-for-a-decade butt up those stairs and onto a treadmill? HELL YES.

Now I’m not gonna lie, day one was a little touch and go. About eight minutes in a weird hitch caught in one hip. At ten I started wondering if I could make it through thirty minutes on that thing. But I did. Slowly, painfully, but I did. Mostly because I’m ridiculously stubborn. And I made it back to the gym every single day. Even the day I had to stay home until 10:00am with a plumber so I lost my high school drop-off shove out the door. Even the day the treadmills were full so I winged up a prayer as I threw myself onto an elliptical.

Week one down, another 2,130 to go.