Running High

I now understand why people run. I have started putting short 60 second intervals of running into my treadmill workout. I wear my heart rate monitor when I am working out. Wow, it gets my heart rate up to 170 bpm or higher. And I can only run for 60 seconds. I have been doing at least four of those intervals. Today I did five. So in a 40 minutes walk, I ran five minutes of it! That may not seem like at lot to some of you. But for me it is a major victory. I try to keep my walk at 3 mph and the run at 5 mph. At the end of the minute run, I feel like I'm going to die. But after slowing down for about 4 minutes, I'm ready to do it again. I'd only been walking about 20-25 minutes, but today I wanted to push it. I did a total of 40 minutes and a total of 2.2 miles. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. But mentally I'm on such a high. A year ago I couldn't do more than two minutes on the stationary bike with leg cramps. Today I'm running! I've dropped 70 lbs.

There was a time when I couldn't walk from the parking lot into Walmart without being out of breath. Today I don't drive around looking for a close parking spot. I just take the first spot in aisle 7. If it's at the far end, that's ok. By parking in the same aisle, I can find my car. LOL And at my age, that's important. I never thought in my lifetime I'd weight below 200 lbs. I honestly can't remembver when I last weight that. I'm sure it was at least 30 years ago. And today I'm under 200. That was my original goal. But now it's changed. I am going to lose another 50 lbs. There is no time limit on it although I would prefer to weigh that in a year from now. But it actually seems possible.