Doubling down....

When in the course of human events....

it becomes necessary to change one's tack in exercise - I achieved a goal of 4 mph, and without running the whole thing including the dratted stairs I do not see the return on investment increasing the speed. I'd actually be shortening my workouts. Today I'm going to slow down a bit - instead of looking at avg speed, I'm going to focus on heart rate and double the course, 5 miles in total and two times up and down the stairs. I'm going to keep my heart at the target range of 140 but I will try to avoid (for now) the 160+ range, except on the stairs. This is to ward off any "plateau" from stopping progress.

I am enthused with my progress so far, I haven't really weighed myself, I've been using a different determinant - how my rings fit. My wedding ring had to be resized 3 years ago and started to be tight enough to be concerning. My wife also gave me a ring for our 25th anniversary, that while it fit, I knew it was not going to come off without a lot of work. Both rings now slide easily from my fingers. I will know when my plan is fully changing me when the rings fall off. That is now sometime off in the future, but I am on my way.

Another reason to change the focus is not to burn myself out. I want to make this a life-change, not a fad or mood. to do this I need to focus on attainable fitness goals and ones that support the main goal of reducing.