And the beat goes on

So, Monday or so I noticed my car was making a noise. It was kinda like an exhaling noise everytime I pushed the clutch pedal down. Well it started to get worse. By today not only was it making a screaching noise like a timing belt, but it was also starting to smell. According to the mechanic that's a metal on metal smell. So it looks like I have to replace the clutch. Unfortunately we don't really know what the metal on metal smell is yet, as he has to remove the entire transmission to replace the clutch and since there were no visible metal shavings, he seems to think that it's another piece that works with the clutch. Fortunately for me, if that is the case, when you replace a clutch you buy a kit that comes with a bunch of other parts. So you don't just replace the clutch pad, if that's what it is. You replace mutliply components. So hopefully the metal on metal smell will be fixed with the clutch. the bad news - he can't do it until monday and it'll cost anywhere from $600 - $1000 if it's just the clutch. If it's something else... just shoot the car. Or leave it parked in my neighborhood without the club on it. Just let me get my Johnny Cash CD out of the car first.

On the bright side of things I did my first training workout. 30 minutes of running at 70%-80% heart rate. Which works out to a pretty good walk uphill. Looks like tomorrow is my day off. And on Saturday I've got a 45 - 60 minute bike ride at an easy pace keeping my heart rate at a certain level. I guess this means I should probably breakdown and buy a good heart rate monitor.