Sunday, September 23, 2012

Training the Treadmill



260/366



I got a wild hair, and decided to do my 25 minute run on the basement treadmill.  Well, funny thing, my treadmill is dumb.  I have long suspected that it sits at an angle, even when I'm supposed to be at a 0 incline, I can feel myself working uphill.  That made running on my treadmill difficult last winter, because every time I got on, I could only go 10 minutes.  I figured I was just not properly trained.  I thought I had it figured it. This time, as Kathleen and I would restart our Couch 2 5K, I would include running on the basement treadmill as one of my weekly workouts, so as to include the process, thus training myself to the treadmill, so I could run on it any time.  Then came Texas, and I fell off the wagon, didn't exercise for almost a week, picked up right where I left off, and didn't die.  And the weather turned to lovely, pre-fall, and it's nice to do a 20 minute run outside, considering we've spent the last 5 months in excess of 90 degrees.  I did an 8 3 8  minute on the treadmill run, then I ran 2 weeks outside, or at the gym with Kathleen.   So I decided, I need to do this 25 minute run this week downstairs.  So I did.  
Only it didn't work out quite as I intended.  I had my water, my radio, I was in like flynn.  I walked briskly for 5 minutes, and commenced running.  I was going like 3.2 mph, which I think it exaggerates that too, but anyway, 8 minutes later, my hip started to burn.  Maybe I'm crazy.  I asked Eric to come down, does he think that the treadmill is on an incline, even though I've not selected an incline?  He says yes, and as we talk about it, (we don't usually talk about the problems in our exercising for some reason) he had trouble last winter going more than 10 minutes.  Ha!  What do you know about that?!  So I got off and walked around while he messed with the treadmill to see if he could Make it get lower.  Nope, no luck there.  
So I just got back on and finished my half hour with walking.  I wasn't burning at a slower pace.  But the result was still pretty gross and sweaty, so I consider it a success overall.  I came upstairs and iced my lower spine and hip, and in spite of failing at doing my 25 minute run, I felt like it was still a success since I had  broke a sweat, and got some running in.  Movement is better than no movement.  

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