I am....

I will finish the title in a bit. I have some things I need to share first.

I've been meaning to share with you what I wrote since Friday. I've just been busy, eating cookies mostly, but busy getting ready for Christmas. Wrapping & finishing a few homemade gifts. So let me back track a little...

My friend Ashley has been feeling under the weather. The poor thing. She can't quite shake this cold she's had & Thursday passed up the Y to rest. Since I was up & I had to talk to someone at the Y anyway, I went over to do a little cardio. I didn't do my C25K work as I won't do that without Ashley. When I got there I jumped on the cross trainer. I haven't been on the cross trainer in weeks, since I started doing the C25K program. Usually, when I get on the cross trainer after not being on it for a while, it's a bit tough. I usually don't incline it & leave the resistance about 6. Well, I started right out at a resistance of 8. Pretty good. So as I was trucking along, I checked my heart rate. 128. What the hell? Why is it so low? Not that I'm complaining, mind you, it's just it shouldn't be that low since I haven't been on the cross trainer. In fact, my legs weren't burning. I wasn't struggling.

I decided to increase my resistance up to 10 & moved the incline to 14. I checked my heart rate again in a little bit. 131. WTF?!?!? Really?!?!? I made things more difficult & my heart rate didn't increase much & I wasn't struggling. Then it occurred to me......Doing C25K, even minimally, as in, I'm still doing week 1, two to three times per week is making a difference. That's when it occurred to me.

On Friday, Ashley was feeling better so we went to do C25K. I decided to push myself & set the speed on the treadmill at 4.0. A speed of 4.0 is really that fast but it was a big deal for me. I have never ever set the speed that fast before!!! I've never really been higher than 3.8. Now I set it at 4.0 & planned to "run"???? What is going on?? Well, I did it & successfully at that. I'm pretty darn proud of myself!!!

What did I really realize? That small amounts of exercise are good for you. I've cut back some because of the holidays but, like I said before, Ashley & I do C25K two to three times per week along with 5 minutes of Zumba once a week. By no means gung ho but not sedentary either. So, with that, let me stand on my soap box for a minute:

Get out & move!! Do SOMETHING!! It's good for you!! You can commit to 20 minutes for at least 3 times per week!!!

So, Friday I was on such a high after 2 awesome cardio days and something very important occurred to me.....

I. Am. Strong.