Monday, February 23, 2015

Run Fifteen: "Tough. Keep running."

Once again I had a bit of a fail with the
treadmill and my distance number may be a
off. 
This run involved two eight minute runs with a five minute walk break between them. My goal for the run was to run all of both of those, with at least one at 3.5 mph the whole way. I did 3.5 mph for all of both of them, except for the 3 or 4 minutes of the first one when I was going 3.6 mph. :D 

It was *not* an easy accomplishment -- the first run went okay, but the second one was *tough*. Starting at about minute 3 of the second run, my internal dialogue went sort of like this: 

"Can I stop now?" 

"Nope, keep running." 

"How about now?" 

"Nope, listen to the music and keep running." 

"I'd  really like to stop now." 

"No."

"Please? I'm really tired."

"Tough. Keep Running." 

And so on for about five minutes. My calves were mostly fine but my hamstrings were getting tired and sore and I was very winded. I could probably have done better if I'd backed the pace down, but I wanted to stay at 3.5 mph. 

The music *really* helped -- when I wanted not to be focusing on the fact that my legs were tired and I was huffing and puffing, I could listen to the music and sort of fly. 

I had an interesting treadmill issue -- or, at least, a treadmill issue that taught me something useful. When I had just started my cooldown walk at the end, the emergency stop got triggered and it took me a little while to get the treadmill going again. While I was standing still, I could feel my calves cramping all to heck. I did some extra cool-down walking to make up for it. Lesson learned: Cool down walks are important, so don't skimp on them. It doesn't hurt to do a little more if I have time for it.

I also discovered that the treadmills have a built in heart rate monitor -- if I hold the metal grips (which I don't usually, because I don't want to lean on them or use them for support) and wait a second, my heart rate shows up on the screen. Who knew!? When I was having to be very stern with myself to keep going, my heart rate was at about 80% of maximum (using the American Heart Association's figure of 220-less-my-age as my max). I need to do some more research to figure out what to do with that information. 

Next run is scheduled for Wednesday. The schedule for Week 5, Day 3 is a 20 minute continuous run. Eeep! Goal for the run -- keep running for 20 minutes. I'm not going to press for any particular pace as long as I keep going. I'm anticipating more stern dialogues with myself. 

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