Leaving Puppy @ Home Guilt

My fiance and I have a 13 week old husky puppy and have had her for a little over a week, we both work 9-5 jobs so we have to crate our puppy while we are away for those 9 hours. This is very hard to do since we crate her for 7 hours while we're sleeping. That is already 15 hours of crating with only 2 hours of play/walk/eating time in the morning between "cratings". We both feel like we can no longer go to the gym because that would be another 1.5 hours of crating. Is it okay to crate our puppy this much?

Eventually, when she is more potty trained I can leave her out and about the house. I would love to leave her about the house during the day when we train the biting/mouthing phase out of her and when she is toilet trained. Would this 1.5 hours of gym time be a good time to try leaving her in a gated off room, such as our kitchen?

I realize this wont be much of an issue once she is house trained, just wondering if I should even be crating her while were at work or if it would be okay to leave her with a bed and some safe toys in a partitioned off part of the house, such as our mudroom which has nothing dangerous in it. It is just a blank room with 4 walls and 2 doors.



TL : DR - Is it okay to leave a puppy crated for 15 hours total during the day? (7 then 8 hours)

Should I feel bad about wanted to go to the gym for an additional 1.5 hours?

Can I start leaving my puppy in a puppy safe 10x20 room while I am at the gym?

Is spending 2 hours with her in the morning and 4 in the evening enough for during the week? The weekend will always be a puppy/dog fun filled attention weekend.