Turn It Up!

I have this week off from work. Which means I have plenty of time in the morning to get my workout completed.

But I'm starting to get bored with my routine: Roll out of bed, run a brush through my Medusa locks, slide on a headband, pull on some workout clothes, pee the dog, hit the stairs for the basement, stretch, and walk ... for three, four or five miles at a 3.9 mph pace.

Yawn. Same thing, day in, day out.

So yesterday, it occured to me I could do something different.

I wanted to run. I REALLY wanted to run. I even did for about 10 steps. And then I got freaked out and stopped. While my knee is feeling much better, it still doesn't work properly. (You would have laughed had you seen me stutter-stepping in the front of church on Christmas Eve as I tried to figure out how to kneel for communion. Kneeling isn't one of my best skills since "the incident." Jim occasionally catches me doing butt lifts on the floor in the bedroom and the maneuver I use to get back on my feet cracks him right up.)

So in spite of my desire to run, I thought it best to not ... better to walk for 10 more years than to run and risk blowing my knee up the rest of the way and be sidelined again, right?

So I just turned up the speed. Not a lot. Went up to 4.2 and did it for a half mile. (I'm also on a 3 incline, BTW.)

Then I slowed down and walked at regular pace for a quarter mile. And fired it back up to 4.2 again.

I forgot how much fun it was to do the intervals. Up and down. Up and down. Challenging myself to go farther faster. I sweat more. The scale showed positive results. And my brain was entertained.

Duh. Not sure why this didn't occur to me last week. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow. I hit 4.3 for a half-mile today and didn't fall on my butt. Maybe I can do 4.4?