Must... not... give... up....

I have like 10 other things I should be doing instead of blogging, but here I am. Just thought I'd share a little tale with you all tonight.

So one of my buds who is taking biology with me is doing a portfolio project which requires volunteers (enter me) to do 30 minutes of physical activity that gets the heart rate up to at least 70%. I must do this for at least 2 weeks (I think... memory is a bit foggy on this detail... could be longer). I tried to start doing this last Saturday. Then I was in so much pain for the rest of Sunday and Monday that I fell out of it and must now start again. So I did, tonight. I did something like 80 jumping jacks and a 20 minute run. The problem is that I'm terribly out of shape for this kind of activity. My yoga practices give me good breaths but don't really condition me for endurance in running. Meaning I basically die after jogging for 5 minutes straight. Needed a new strategy. Started doing run one minute, walk a minute. Much more achieveable this way, but not sure if I'm still meeting the requirements for the study. Will have to clarify at the next meeting. I also don't think my heart rate is getting all the way up to 70%. I'm getting up to somewhere like 130 beats per minute, but I need to be at 159. This poses a problem for me because my heart is already beating out of my chest at 130ish and my breath is pretty much maxed out. This makes me wonder if I'm just counting wrong and missing some beats or something. If anyone out there has any suggestions for improvements, I will gladly accept them!