Lessons Learned

Over the last few weeks I learned an important lesson when it comes to my fitness journey: Take it slow! Previously I had been working on my jogging, trying to work up to doing a 5k. I found some information about getting up to speed and training for a 5k. A lot of what I found was geared for starting at 5 mph for 1 min then going back down to 3.7 for 4 min and Increasing the time for running each week. I had been doing a few min jogging at 4.5 mph so I figured I could do 2 min at 5 mph followed by 3 min at 3.7 mph. Turns out this was not such a good idea. After my second set of this my asthma kicked in and I felt like I could not breathe, even after taking my inhaler. I decided to just do walking after that point and used the incline to up my heart rate. After this I was afraid to jog anymore in fear of starting a bad asthma attack.

This week I decided to try it again, and vowed to take it a bit slower. I did not push for 5 mph and I went back to doing 1 min 5mph followed by 4 min 4.5 - 4.7 mph. This worked much much better for me and I was able to complete the workout without the use of my inhaler! Yesterday I pushed a little further because the 1-4 ratio was not getting my heart rate high enough. I bumped it up to 2 min at 4.5-4.7 mph followed by 3 min 3.7-3.8 mph and added some incline work to the 3 min. sections. I also jogged at 4.7 for a stretch of 5 min. This ended up working out perfectly! I even upped the length of my workout to 60 min from 45 min. I felt awesome after wards!

There is no need for me to be ready for a 5k in a few short weeks, so I decided there is no good reason to push myself hard enough to bring on an asthma attack. I will slowly work up to my goal to run the 5 k next fall and by then I should be able to push myself that far without an asthma attack.

The scale is still my enemy, but this week in Dance it Off I noticed that my legs are starting to look pretty darn good! So I'm avoiding the scale for the next few weeks. I'm also going to ask my trainer about the weight issue I've been having!