Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

AM: A quick five miles on the treadmill to start the day. There was a frozen puddle by the gym entrance. I saw a woman slip and fall on it as I was parking my car before the run, and some guy slipped and fell as I was leaving the gym after my run. Also, my first treadmill shut off ten minutes into the run. I didn't crash into the controls as hard as I could have.

38:00

PM: more vertical on the treadmill. I ran a pretty typical workout--10 minute warmup, followed by 45 minutes on the 15 percent grade, followed by a cooldown. I ran most of the vertical at 4.5 mph, but I bumped it up to 4.8 mph once I was inside the last 10 minutes, and finished with a minute at 5 mph. I think that puts me at just over 2500 feet for the night.

I was watching the Oregon-Auburn game because I was told it was not one to miss. I have no connection or loyalty to either school, so I chose to cheer for Auburn. That violates my general cheer-for-the-lowest-ranked-team policy, but sometimes the state of Oregon bothers me because of its surplus of smug. Plus, I see a lot more people running around in Oregon attire than in Auburn attire, so I thought I'd cheer against the team with the (seemingly) more cultish following.

Oregon fans, don't take any of that personally.

Unfortunately, I left at half time. I wonder how the game will turn out

61:00

Eight miles on the treadmill in a little under an hour. We ran late tonight, so I felt a little off at the start, but I came around after 15 minutes or so. I passed the time by throwing in assorted half-mile intervals. Or interval-like-thingies.

AM: Forty minutes on the treadmill before school. Five minutes to warm up, 30 minutes on the 10 percent grade (10:00/mile) and 5 minutes to cool down.

PM: Very little time this evening, so I just through in a quick 20 minutes on the treadmill. I'm starting to feel some protests in my left knee, and it makes me nervous. So far it's nothing to worry about, and I hope it stays that way. Still, I think I'll be cross training for the next couple of days, then I'll see where I stand on the weekend.

The reason I had so little time this evening is that I've joined an intramural basketball team with some guys from the law school, and we had our first game tonight. I didn't know what to expect before, but I do now--we're terrible. In fact, I don't think I've ever been beat so badly in any sport in my entire life.

I guess it will be fun :-l

As promised, I stayed away from running today and used the stair stepper instead. (Obviously, then, my miles aren't actual. But as I've said many times before, the stair stepper is the one form of cross training that I do count in my miles, given it's direct relation to mountain running). One hour at a steady pace (after slowly ramping it up for the first five minutes or so). 

AM: More stair stepping at the gym. This time, I alternated between two minutes easy (about 150 watts) and two minutes not so easy (about 350 watts).

PM: Even more stair stepping. Sigh. This time, I just kept it nice and steady for an hour. According to the computer, I climbed 320 floors (compared to about 420 in an hour last night), but who knows what any of that actually means?

Tomorrow I plan to try running again. I think two days is enough to keep my knee from getting injured, but just in case, I'll be at the gym so I can bail at any time (see how just gave myself an excuse to stay inside where it's nice and warm?). Also, I'll wear my little tendon strap thingy. I don't know if it really works, but I think it does give me a mental benefit.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--I like treadmills. Which is why I spent two hours on one today. (Also so I could bail out at any moment if my knee felt like trouble.) The workout was pretty straightforward. For the first hour, I alternated between ten minutes easy on the flat (8:30-9:00 pace) and ten minutes on the 10 percent grade (10:00 pace). For the second hour I ran 10 flat, 20 incline, 10 flat, 10 incline, and 10 more flat, with the last two minutes at a 6:00 pace. After that, I thought I was done, but I still had to wait for my ride home so I ran a flat mile at a 12:00 pace. I read that that was Meltzer's average pace on his cross-country adventure, and ever since reading that I was wondering what it would feel like. The answer--slow. Still, I can see how it would be very enjoyable to cover long stretches of back roads at such a pace. Also, I imagine you'd start to feel it after 10 hours a day for 40 days. Yikes.

2:12:00