The one in which she rambles about exercise

I feel lucky to enjoy my gym routine. Granted, there is the occasional day where dragging myself out of bed is the last thing I want to go. Usually, that goes away once I'm up. Every once in a while, I have a day like yesterday. I did not want to go to the gym. I did not want to get out of my car once I was there. I did not want to get on the treadmill. I did not want to lift weights. This very much hindered my work out, but I still did it. By the end, I was ecstatic.

This morning was different. I had a goal: c25k week 3 day 1 and 40+ minutes of the bike. So, I walked into the gym and hopped on the tread mill. 5 minute warm up, then 90 seconds of running followed by 90 seconds of walking. Easy. Now for the new thing- 3 minutes of running followed by 3 minutes of walking. Yikes! But I've been building up to this.. no biggie. 90 seconds of running- 90 seconds of walking. Not as easy as the first time.. but better than the 3 minutes! Then, my last burst: 3 minutes of running and 3 minutes of walking. This was harder. Once the first minute came down, I was very much "I CAN DO THIS!".. then the first second after the first minute and I thought, "well, I did skip the last day of week 2.. maybe I should just stop after 90 seconds." Needless to say, I did not. I have to tell you.. it felt great! I was breathing harder and sweating.. but at the end, I wasn't panting and I felt accomplished!

Next, I moved onto the bike. Almost the same story.. at 10 minutes, I told myself I'd stop at 15. At 15- 20. At 20- 30. Once I got to 30 minutes, I knew I had to finish the last 12-13 minutes I had left of the show I was watching. I popped off (covered in sweat), cleaned up, then off i went to work.

I did over an hour of cardio today. This is big for me. I didn't push myself as hard on the bike as I usually do.. but it was level 7 or 8 (I don't remember) and when I would notice myself slacking.. I would pick it up!

Boring boring exercise talk.. I know.. but I read an article today that totally made sense and I figured I'd share. It's about learning to love exercise as a way to a lifestyle change. i really do think that if you're going to go from sedentary to active, you need to start with something you very much enjoy.

Back when I first started exercise, I just popped on the treadmill for 20 minutes and called it a day. I like to walk- always have.. and this was a good segue for me. We got a personal trainer and he showed me the machines that had intimidated me. Well, once I realized how great THAT was, my warm up was the treadmill followed by trying to beat my previous score on weights. It works for me. I'm taking the same approach to running. Being able to see my improvement does amazing things for me. Being able to push myself just a little harder when I don't think I can.. and then succeeding... well.. it's just amazing.

I created a list of goals that I want to post here. I'm pretty open with my weight and it will be up here, but I'm scared that J will start reading this that day.. and I'm just not ready to share the number with him. Though I don't think he would care... part of me just isn't sure. =/

Anyway.. that's all I really wanted to talk about today. Hope I didn't ramble too much...

M