Week 1 Day 3

Today, my high-powered manager character hogged the day: 3 hours driving; 3 hours at an airport; 3 hours flying; 3 hours in a meeting; and an hour on the BlackBerry around lunch.  So my workout didn't happen until about 9:30.  But, I wasn't about to put it off.  (The W1D3 routine is the same as the last two routines.)

I crushed it!  This is how I thought W1D1 was going to go, but better late than never.  I was in a much more experimental frame of mind today - I only varied my speed a little bit, but I measured my heart rate often and played with stride.  The only problem I had was my left shin never seemed to get completely happy.  I remember that feeling well from when I was a boy in middle school (and I was skinny then, so I'm not sure what to blame here).

Today I had the incline at one percent the entire time.  I wiggled at 3.3 mph and I jiggled at 5.3 mph except on jog 6 (where I did 6.0 mph) and jog 8 (where I did 5.7 mph).

Most of my experimentation was with stride.  Since my quads got their wake-up call, I have a keen sense of how much work they are doing.  And here is what I've figured out:

If I do a fast foot speed, I can pretty much do a (possibly silly looking) heel-toe sort of thing where I land flat-footed and my quads don't seem to be doing much of anything.  Every time a foot hits the treadmill, I can feel my ankles, shins, and mid-section excess at what I'd call a medium level.

If I do a long stride, my heels hit first, and I feel my quads doing a whole bunch of work.  Every time one of my T. Rex legs makes contact with the treadmill, I feel maximal shock to structural and excess components. (Sorry, looks like my geek character is peeking out - been repressed too long today.)

Then I did a stride where I land on the balls of my feet.  I immediately fell in love with this stride, because it took almost all the shock away.  It felt like I was floating along just dipping a toe down here and there to stay aloft, kind of like rowing.  And, as out of shape as I am, when I jogged this way my body was saying: "You've found the gear, now hit the gas pedal!"  If my left shin had felt as good as the right; and if I could figure out how to breathe in and out at the same time; I sure would have gone significantly faster.

On the heart rate side, I was at 117 after the warm-up walk.
After run 1: 142   After walk 1: 128
After run 2: 148   After walk 2: 135
After run 3: 155   After walk 3: 140
Basically a saw-tooth drawn on a ramp.  I hit 172 after the 6.0 mph jiggle, which was the highest.

I'm going to have a lot of questions on this stride business.  But it's late now, so I'm calling it a night.