"Fun" is no longer a foreign concept at the gym

This week has been full of cardio goodness, and after taking a break from how hard I'd been hitting the treadmill, it's been a lot of fun.

On Sunday, I'd put in a lackluster cardio session in the morning. I just hadn't been feeling it. It was late in the afternoon when, while watching a group of competitors sweating, groaning, and crying their way through a 5k on "Biggest Loser", I thought Huh, that looks like a good idea!

And I meant it. What the crap is wrong with me?

So I went back to the gym, hopped on the treadmill, and knocked out 3.1 miles. I figured in my five-minute walk at the beginning and finished the whole thing in 46:06. What I'm most proud of is that I rated my pace and finished as strongly as I began, continuing my run/walk interval until the very end. Each mile was within a minute of each other.

Today, I spent some time on arms and followed my lifting up with another trip to the treadmill. I put in 35 minutes and went 2.41 miles, passing my previous two-mile best and finishing in 27:57.

I made a leap of faith today. I've settled into my speeds and am always nervous about going faster. Klutz may as well be my middle name, and ever since I was a kid, I've been notorious for tripping over my own feet. After my impressive head-over-heels fall down the stairs of the State Capitol in 6th grade, in front of ninety classmates, you might even say I'm renowned.

So the idea of pushing myself to go faster on the treadmill is scary to me. I'm convinced I'll fall. I can see, in my head, me stepping off the belt and falling off the treadmill in some dramatic fashion. It's pretty grisly.

But today, I took the chance and turned the speed up to 6mph. That's a ten-minute mile. It doesn't sound like much, most people can run that fast without even blinking, especially for short distances. For me, it was huge. In October, I ran at 4.5mph. I gradually moved up to 4.8, then 5mph. I try a little higher on my middle intervals, but only a little. I don't push myself very hard.

I had a lot to be proud of today.

Until I went back to the locker room, anyway, and weighed myself. According to the scale tonight, my weight has gone up slightly. It was almost enough to erase the progress I made on the treadmill.

Almost.

Some weeks, my victory will be on the scale. But some weeks, it won't. It'll be somewhere else. Every week, I fight to remember that. It's worth remembering.