Let me tell you about this feeling...

Today, I went to the gym with the same friend who I went to the park with on Saturday. We'll call him P.

So, P and I did an ab and back workout, which was pretty cool since I discovered I've been using this one machine completely and totally wrong!! All I needed was some help, and we finally got down to business. But poor P injured his elbow during his wrestling training earlier today, so he left after we were done weight training and didn't stick around for the run.

So, my run.

I mentioned I'm doing the C25K, right? I adore this program. I just finished Week 3, Day 3 (once again ignoring the fact I started six weeks ago...), and here's what I had to do this week:

5 minute warm-up walk
90-second run
90-second walk
3 min run
3 min walk
90-second run
90-second walk
3 min run
3 min walk
5 min cool-down walk

So! Why am I going over this with you? Well, back when I started day 1 of this week (which was the Sunday before last....), I nearly died when I did this run for the first time. Seriously, it hurt like a mofo to do the 90-second run the first time, and the 3-min run made me feel like my lungs were going to explode. It was nuts!

However, today was completely different. I bumped up the incline on the treadmill to 1 (I usually just leave it at 0), and ran at a pace of 4.3 during the time to run (which used to be 4.0) and walked at 3.0 (which used to be 2.7), and I didn't want to kill myself at the end! I felt so accomplished, and a little astounded when after the first 90-second run, I wasn't gasping and wheezing for air!! It felt amazing!!

The increase in my physical activity due to the Spartan Race had to be the reason for this. I mean, durr, right? I was barely going to the gym before, but now that I'm doing more strength training and running more often, I'm strengthening my body in other ways to help support my runs as well.

Basically, I had started the C25K thinking every run was going to be torture, and I'm sooooo happy that this one wasn't. It's such an amazing feeling to go from practically dying at the end of a run, to feeling energetic and ready to do more after the same run a little over a week later. I know that this is the expected outcome, but it still amazes me. I've never felt like this in my entire life!!

And I couldn't have done this without my Band. :)