Yesterday I set out to run 4 miles. It was cold and rainy so I went to the Y and hopped on a treadmill. I wasn't too pleased with my 3.1 the day before, so I wanted to really impress myself. Naturally, that meant I would start out faster than I had before, but that was not enough.
When I have been running on a treadmill I have been leaving it perfectly flat (incline 0.0). I know this is nowhere near the real world so I thought I would pick one of the random-ish incline patterns to make the run more "realistic". I decided to pick Cross Country #3. It was a up and down that gradually increased over the course of the run.
About 2 miles into I was getting my ass kicked by the incline. I realized that it was only going to get worse and decided I better drop the incline and just finish the 4 miles. Well, as I was pushing the "down" arrow real fast to get some relief I accidentally pushed the big red "stop" button. The treadmill came to a halt and all of my momentum was lost. As I got it started back up I decided to just run one more mile and to finish strong.
Wednesdays are my long mid-week run. Today I was going to run 6 miles; once again I would be running on the treadmill. After not being pleased with a 3.1 mile day and not being able to finish a 4 mile day, I didn't want to take any chances on today's run. I walked a quarter mile and then started slow (just under 12 min mile pace). I gradually sped it up, but not too fast. At the halfway mark I was running just over 10 minute miles. I sped it up a little more. After the 4th mile I really started to get my stride. I noticed that my heart rate was lower than other days and that I was able to breath easier. Maybe I was actually starting to see some progress from my short time running again. I could take a drink without gasping for air after, and the best part was I was sure I could speed up and still go farther than the 6 miles I set out to do.
I was well into the 6th mile when I hit the 60 minute mark...
COOLDOWN...
The damn treadmill had decided I had run long enough. The pace automatically slowed from a 7.0 to a 5.8. I was almost to 6 miles so I decided to just run through the cooldown period and the be done with it. The weird thing was that it never slowed down any more. After a short while I decided to speed it back up and finish the 6 miles. I like to finish strong and didn't want to hold up the machine b/c people were starting to fill in, so I really pushed the pace. I ran the last quarter mile in well under 2 minutes and it FELT GOOD.
My right calf was hurting a little bit when I got done, but I think it will be alright. Tomorrow I am planning to do 4 again and then rest on Thursday. I am now confident I will be able to do my 8 mile long day this weekend. If so then this will be a 30.1 mile week. If I was going to run a marathon at the end of April, my weekly mileage would be good even though my long run is a little short.
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