Week 8 Day 2

Cowabunga!  I was going to work-out before dinner.  I got home around 7 pm to the smell of bacon and eggs.  Natually, I sat at the table and just pigged out.  I let my food settle.  Then my stomach decided to be unsettled.  Starting at around 9:30, I must have gone up and down 12 flights of stairs finding my gear to get all runner'd up.  The freakin' iPod was insufficiently charged, so I put Cheryl Crow back into the DVD.  I used a floor fan for the first time. Finally, at like 10 pm, I got going.  And I had a couple of goals today, based off pent-up frustration I suppose:

Goal One: Face the treadmill and show it who's boss.

Goal Two: Achieve more than W8D1

I programmed the treadmill to do essentially what I had done on the track, with less slacking at the end, and for longer:

Interpretation: Row one is the warm-up, I don't count it for distance.  Row two reads: Jog 5.3 mph for 2 minutes and 50 seconds (which is a pace of 11 minutes 19 seconds) and you'll go a quarter mile.  I basically was trying to do quarter miles, decreasing speed by 0.1 mph each time until after 1.5 miles.  Then, I was going to hang around at 4.8 mph for another 12:32.  Then, I'd go at 4.7 mph until I hit 3.1 miles.

Here is what I actually did:

I made it through those faster quarter miles.  I made it through 15:40 of 4.8 mph.  After about five minutes of that constant speed, my hips ached, but finally it went away.  After 30 seconds at 4.7 mph, my heart rate reached 170.  (It had always been 164-168 since towards the end of the 5.3 mph jog.)  So, I cranked it down to 4.0 mph - my maximum walking speed.  After two minutes of that, with a HR of 150, I dialed in 4.6 mph.  With a minute remaining I hit 5.0, and after 30 seconds I had gas in the tank, so I pushed it to 6.0 mph.  Then, the treadmill obeyed its program and put me at 3.3 mph.  At that speed, I hit 3.1 miles at 38:17.

Due to issues revealed in the last post, I ran without a shirt.  And geez, that sweat was flying ... it hit the wind from the fan ... I was a regular fountain of mediocrity down there in the basement!!

Sheryl Crow and the DVD?  Splattered.

Treadmill control panel?  Wrecked.

Arm rails? Sweat paisleys everywhere.

The belt? The bottoms of my shoes squeaked.

Injury report.  Upon getting off that machine, my first thought was "Crap, I'm not running Wednesday."  My left knee had hurt for five or so minutes in the middle of my treadmill war.  My first knee complaint of the program.  On the first stair coming out of the basement, I thought something was going to go horrifically wrong.  I had my lips in a little "o" shape like a choir boy, only I was prepared to say something rather un-churchlike.  Magically, the knee actually straightened and the rest of the stairs were okay.  My right lower leg also hurt for a while, and at least I was able to pin down where.  I put weight on my right foot, and as soon as my center of mass swings over the ankle, there is tenderness on the left, back side of the lower calf maybe 3 or 4 inches above the ankle.  I think it must be a tendon or ligament thing.  When I take the weight back off the foot, the slight discomfort fades away within a second or two.  After writing this post, and sitting for a bit, I'm thinking I can go for an easy run Wednesday.  Then again, I've had my cool down beverage - a glass of French Bordeaux.  Geez it's late!  Remind me to become an early morning runner!