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Just Do It, As Nike Says

Since back on my feet, from breaking my foot, I have been mainly focussed on getting my foot back into running shape.

Many of you who know me will know I have turned into, over the past 5 years, one of those people who is addicted to the gym. Not addicted in the 'oh my god, I have to get that new outfit, so I can show it off to the new cute towel boy' but addicted in the REAL sense. That it is like a drug I cannot do without.

I would be called what I would consider 'hormonally challenged' although, since I'm pretty sure 51.2% of the world's population probably is (are ya with me women?) I suppose that's not really that challenging.

Since I began regularly excercising when we moved to Belfast in 2004, I just suddenly always felt better.

In the past, there were certain times of the month when I would simply have to just deal with the 'oh-look-at-that-milk-commercial-I'm-going-to-cry' and the 'I am so ANGRY THAT YOU HAVE PUT THE FORK AND KNIFE ON THE SAME SIDE OF MY PLATE YOU MORON!!!!'.

There was also the anxiety, the worry-about-everything, the not-sleeping, the I-feel-like-a-martian-among-these-people.

It was all part of the ebbs and flows of a 'woman's journey' and I suppose I just go used to it and carried on.

But then something strange happened. I began sweating my ass off in the gym and suddenly, I was not irrational and weepy during certain times, I was just me. The me you would find during the not-so-mood-swing weeks.

And it was great. And then I forgot what it was like to be a hormonal doofus. Until of course, I broke my foot and stopped exercising.

As if living in a foreign country wasn't challenging enough, I had to re-learn how to put up with the old-anxious-ridden-tear-jerky me. And so did D. And I suppose new people I met just assumed that's the person I had always been.

Well, not anymore.

After a good chat with D about when I should head back to the gym (my foot still aches most of the time, which leads me to believe the muscles are STILL learning how to work and you know my patience...)

I thought I would wait until after my sister's wedding - off to Chicago a week today and really looking forward to it - but D made the point that if I thought it was really important for my mental well being, why didn't I just go first thing Monday?

Okay, it was Tuesday night but I tell you, I had a better sleep last night, I felt more productive in the house, at school and just generally great. My foot even hurts less today then it has over the past few weeks I've been babying it.

It's good to be back people. Real good.

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