Salt Lake Winter Series 15K
TREADMILL WORKOUT (What the what?!)
The plan today was the use the SLC 15K as my last moderate workout before the marathon - run the first couple miles easy and then progress into marathon pace for the last 6-7 miles. Rob and I left around 8:45am and the weather was perfect - warm and calm. By the time we got out to SaltAir 25 minutes later, it was an absolute white out storm (graupel) that made the 10K from a couple weeks ago seem downright tropical. We went out for our warmup and were completely miserable and freezing within the first 15 seconds. Rob said that all we needed now was to add some lightning to the mix. No lie, 2 seconds later there was a lightning strike and thunder. Thunder snow!!! We decided that the only was to get a quality workout was to either go back in time a few hours and run at 7am when it was nice out or go to the gym and run on the treadmill. The treadmill was actually my suggestion. I'm usually very flexible about workouts (modifying / moving sessions based on the weather during the winter) but that doesn't work when you are 7-10 days out from an important race. You kind of need to do things at more specific time points. I only have a couple rules when it comes to running, and two of them are: 1) Don't run on a treadmill and 2) No racing in long tights or with a shirt under your singlet. One of those rules was going to be broken today regardless of what I did, so I opted to be warm :-) About 2.5 hours after leaving home, I was finally at the gym and ready to get running. Rob showed me how to work the buttons (this was my first treadmill run since approximately 2005, other than some random testing in gait labs). The workout ended up being 15 minutes warmup, 45 minutes at ~AT effort (5:30 pace for 35 minutes and then progressed down to 5:00 pace over the last 10 minutes), then another 15 or so minutes cooldown. I kept the incline at 1%, even though I know it should be at least 2-2.5% to truly account for wind resistance. Anything above 1.5% felt like it was straining my achilles a little too much. So the workout obviously was a lot easier than it would have been outdoors, but I do think there was some advantage of running in a much warmer environment than I am used to. I probably should have been doing more of this throughout the winter, being that its probably going to be pretty warm in Phoenix next weekend. It was nice to have Rob to chat with during the run... otherwise it would have just been insanely boring! I felt like I got a good sweat and a nice little aerobic stimulus today. Definitely a better quality effort than I would have gotten outside. Kudos to those who braved the elements!! The treadmill says I ran 12-something miles but I'll call it zero since it was a treadmill, after all. I should also add that I was "that guy" wearing my complete race uniform at the gym. I sort of felt like a tool, but what can you do? It was the only clothes I had with me. PM - 4 miles, OUTSIDE on a pleasant evening with some light snow coming down. It was something of a winter wonderland. My spirits were so high that I decided to count this morning's run as "real" miles :-)
| 
