Finally

So I had a chance to go to the gym mid-day on Friday while some maintenance work was being done on my edit bay. I miss going to the gym earlier in the day when just about no one is there. It doesn't have all the hot, sticky feeling that the evening does when it's crammed full of people sweating and working out like crazy. On a semi-cold day (cold for LA that is) I've gone into the gym in the evening and had my glasses fog up. So this chance for an afternoon treadmill session was quite welcome. Not only did it feel great to be back in the gym for the first time since Monday, the workout itself felt great. I think this is the first time ever since starting this process where I've done a great run/walk day and then followed it up with a second great run/walk day. I think I've figured out some of the keys to my success finally. The biggest one being speed. I've decided to turn down the speed dial a little bit and in return focus on running for longer length of time. This really seems to be working for me. I've been limiting my running sessions to just 3 minutes for now to keep sticking with my couch to 5k plan, but I feel like I could easily do twice that time if I wanted to. I've also started extending the length of my workout as well. I'm trying to do my best to mimic the great run/walk days I had outside while I was back in the Bay Area. So what I've been doing is walking for 5 minutes to get myself warmed up. Then I did a run/walk regimen doing three minutes on/three minutes off for about 25 minutes and then I followed that up with a nice walk with some hills for another 15 minutes for a total workout of 45 minutes. I enjoyed that workout so much on Friday that I repeated it again on Saturday. This was partly because I wanted to see if I could do back-to-back days and still feel fine and I did. Saturday felt just as great as Friday did. So finally I think I might be making some breakthroughs in this process. We'll see. I'm going to try it again tonight after work and see how it goes. Good or bad, I'll keep you all posted on what happens.