I believe the treadmill dissed me today. I went down to the gym after getting my flu shot at our clinic and warmed up for a few minutes. I had to get on one of the older treadmills since everyone takes the newer ones first. No biggie, the programs are the same, the displays just aren't as nice. So I punch in the 10k program thinking I'd just cruise on it at an 8:00 pace (7.5mph) and see if I can hold that for the whole program or see when I start to fall off. Hit start and I'm cruising along just fine. I get to the 1.16k 3% hill and decide to back it down to 7.2mph (8:25 pace or so) for the hill. About 1k after the hill, the treadmill comes to a stop saying the program is complete. What the heck?? I was at 5.80k and 30:00. I think the treadmill kicked me off because I wasn't going fast enough. Guess you have to be an elite to run on the older treadmills. Guess I'll use the newer ones until next 2012.
So, I was then going to do the 5k program, but decided to challenge myself in a different way. I cranked it up to 7.0mph and 3% incline. Ran that for 8 min then backed it down to my Easy pace of 9:05 (6.6mph) and starting at 3%, each minute I increased the incline 1%. I got to 9% before I decided I'd had enough and took it down to 2% and cooled down. I think I'll do some more of those "hills," but extend the time or maybe bumping it up by 1/2% instead to get more mileage in. 1.5mi before I cooled down. I'm working up my marathon training plan and trying to decide what paces to use since winter is coming and when running in the snow and ice, my paces slow down. I guess I'll just be going by effort/time and then using the treadmill PRs to track my progress. I prefer to run outside even if it's cold, slushy, icy, etc. but I don't mind the treadmill unless it's going to limit me to 30 minute workouts. (The gym does have signs saying there are 30 min limits during peak hours, but I was there after 3:30pm which isn't peak. Unless they changed the machines, they've never limited me to 30 min any time of the day. As long as there's an open treadmill, I don't have a problem finishing my workout even if I'll be on there for 60+ min during peak hours. That's just the kind of guy I am.) THEN, I get home from work and my daughter, who thinks that my laptop is hers, has decided to surprise me with a little change to my desktop. She designed it herself and is very proud of it (I didn't specifically say that she created it herself using Photoshop on FB and heard about it later). She loves the song and she loves to torture me with it every morning on the way to seminary. Anyways, here's a picture of my desktop - professionally designed by Annalee. Copies of the background image are available for $0.99. 
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