Hey Marty, Today's workout didn't suck!

I am posting this note to my friend Marty, who is one of the most logical minds I know when it comes to living each day as balanced as it comes, and not looking anymore forward than that, at least thats my own take on who he is. If you remember, my whole recent quest to go out and do something about my current status of fitness came from a nudge that evolved out of a serious heart to heart at the US Single Distance Championships in early November. I put one foot in front of the other on that very day and almost four months later I am better for it. Exercising in some form is once again a habit, and despite it not being as intense as it was at one time a few years ago I am finding it more rewarding. Maybe that's because I have put less pressure on myself to be "faster, better, stronger, top of my game". Now, I just want to experience every moment and relish it for what it is. Maybe that is me showing my age?

I had originally planned on a tabata interval set today. I like these, even though they are at the top of the intensity scale and HURT beyond belief, their effect is as good as a 90 min workout in a 45min period. What is a tabata interval? Its a HIT (High Intensity or VO2Max effort) developed by Izumi Tabata in the 90's to use with the Japanese Speedskating Team. It consists of a warm up period which in my case was a 30 min walk at 3.5MPH and then a 4 min effort (8x 20'max sprint/10'jog) then a cool down. I really didn't feel up to this today, but that was before I started out on my walk. I was feeling a bit blue this morning, I think it is the fact that I have been paying attention to all the small details and I am finding myself a few pounds heavier than I was when I started, which sucks. I am also tired, my feet hurt, my knees hurt, my hips hurt, my back hurts and my chiropractor has seen me 2x a week. I take a few days off and slide off the cliff I am climbing. After I walked for a bit I made a turn for home to drop off my jacket as I was too warm and I did a "gut check". I decided I would go for it, if I was too sore after the first one I would return to my route and finish the LSD steady state workout,  if I felt fine I would continue the HIT workout. I finished it, it sucked while I was doing it but I was so surprised that when I was finished I bounced right back immediately. I even had to double check my HR to see if I was working as hard as I thought I was. Perceived effort was spot on. WOW! Marty, I take back the part about of the note on your wall about bagging the heavy work. It didn't suck as much as I thought it would!