So not in the mood

Wednesday's exercise:

Full body weights

45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, zone 1 (75% of max)

(plus some extra weights while I was working out with R)

Thursday's exercise:

Intervals on the stairclimber -- 4x 2:00 zone 2, 9:00 zone 4, wahoo!

Plus 15 minutes of warmup on the elliptical trainer and a 1-mile walk home from the gym

Friday's exercise:

Upper body weights

45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, zone 1 (70% of max)

Today's exercise:

10 mile run ... ?

I confess, it does feel good to be back in my workout groove. I stayed on track and did everything on my schedule this week -- even the intervals, which I dreaded all day and would have been so easy to skip after I spent the afternoon with my little C at the beach, then headed to Easy Street Records to see a live Pete Yorn performance, what a treat! Even though it was getting late, I had M drop me off at the gym so I could do the intervals and I'm so glad I did. It had been three weeks since I'd done them and I was curious to see how they'd feel ... overall, not bad. It feels great to be so close to the goal of three sets of 10 minutes in zone 4!

But it's been a long road. The last exercise metabolic test (EMR) test I had done was last fall (at Real Rehab; there's a link on the right if you want to check them out. I really, really like them.) Awesome Izette gave me a whole road map to get to her suggested ultimate goal of three sets of 10 minutes in zone 4. I started with two-minute intervals -- two minutes in zone 2, followed by two in zone 4. When I could do 10 sets of those, I moved to three minutes in zone 4 (the two minutes of recovery in zone 2 always stay the same). Then four minutes, five, six ... when I got to seven minutes in zone 4, I reduced the maximum number of sets to six. At eight minutes in zone 4, I reduced to five sets. At nine, I stopped at four sets. Which means I can reach the goal next week. I feel pretty great about it even though it's taken close to year.

But that's next week. The only thing I have left for this week is my long run and I'm having a hard time get fired up about it. Last week's run was so crappy and I felt so wiped out afterward ... I know the best thing is to get back in the saddle and hope for a better experience but a big part of me is worried I'll just suffer as much on this week's run as I did on last week's. Plus, I got totally spoiled running with Sister A while we were training for the Rock-n-Roll half marathon ... but she's not training for anything right now and hasn't been able to join me for even a section of my long runs lately. Boo hoo for me.

So I've planned what I hope will be a nice route using my favorite website, USA Track and Field. I put a link to it on the right if you want to check it out. And to keep my mind occupied, M downloaded a bunch of audio books for me to put on my iPod. Today I think I'll revisit "Catcher in the Rye" while enjoying some beautiful Seattle scenery ... wish me luck.