I'm very excited after today's trip to the gym. The water was turned off in my building before I had a chance to have a shower, so I had the choice of either going to the gym or using the one at work. I've been procrastinating with going to the gym for the past few weeks, so I took the opportunity.

I went to the gym the day before and spent a little time on the elliptical machine. It gave me a pretty good idea that my knee would hold up. It didn't feel bad at all, and despite hanging out at a constant 160 bpm heart rate, I didn't feel any lightheadedness. Definitely a good sign.

I picked up pretty much right where I left off. I was running 8 minutes, then walking for three before, so I started at 7. It was easy. My heart rate was much lower than it was before, and that's with a complete break for the past two or three months. Wild stuff! It must have had to do with the ten to fifteen pounds less that I'm carrying around now. I didn't think that little weight would have made that much of a difference.

The only difference was in my heart rate during the walking parts. It was much higher, my recovery wasn't nearly as good. I guess that had to do with my heart not being in as good shape. Before I was working it hard pretty much every other day for months. Now with the break it's not doing as well. No worries though, I'm sure it'll get better with enough practice.

I know it's a big jump (and fast forwards me a full month over where I was before the break), but I think I can run constant for fifteen minutes. I wasn't struggling at all when I was running today. Normally I was wheezing and struggling to breathe and keeping an average heart rate somewhere in the 180 range. Now that I'm in the 160 range I think I'll have no problems keeping it up for that long. The only thing that I'll have to be cautious about is my knees. But then again, with less weight on them, I think they're going to hold up fine.

Wow... it's amazing. I actually really enjoyed running. I can't wait to do it again! I haven't been like that since I was a kid. I've never felt this in shape before! Weird after sitting on my ass all this time.

Now I'm debating how much more weight to lose again. I know I've been pretty happy recently, but now that I've seen ten to fifteen pounds make this much of a difference, I want to see how much of a difference another ten to fifteen will make. I think I'm shooting for 145 again, instead of the 155 I nearly settled for. It might not look as good, but I don't care anymore. I just want to improve my running.

If I'm able to do fifteen minutes straight, that would be a great base. It's a big deal for me, because that's when I get to start to build mileage. Walking and running is okay, but at the end of my session I look at the distance covered and I can't separate how much I ran from how much I walked. It really bothers me. I want to be able to have big chunks of distance. Be able to build on them, be able to subjectively compare.

I love stats (at least those kinds). As a kid at the peak of my car geekiness, I would be able to name the 0-60 times and top speeds of almost every car in production at the time. They were numbers related to something that I was really interested in. I ate them, chewed them up and spit them out. Now I want to have some solid ones to work with myself.

Here I go again. From one thing to another and back to here. Will it ever end?