No snow today so I ran to and from the gym (well, ran to the gym and mostly walked home). Last night Paul told me I should do an experiment today, so I did and then modified it a little. Paul's experiment idea came from the fact that I know I am capable of running much faster than I am right now and I think he wanted to see if it was true. Anyway, he suggested I just set the treadmill to 10:00/mile pace and see how long I can go. I decided that it would be an interesting experiment, so I tried it. Here's how it went. I started out at 10:00/mile pace and could tell after about two minutes that I would probably be able to maintain this pace for about five minutes and then I would be toast (for reasons I will explain below), so I asked myself this question: do you want to do that? Do you want to kill yourself in five minutes (possibly I could have gone longer, but there's no way of knowing) and then have nothing left to get you home and then hurt enough that you have to take a day off tomorrow? Or, would you rather go a little longer and have something left in the tank so that you can do it again tomorrow (and you can get home)? Well, I decided on the latter, so this is the workout I ended up with: 2:30 at 10:00/mile pace then 1:00 brisk walk recovery x 4 for a total of 15:00. I probably could have gone to 20:00, but I decided against it. Why, you ask? 1. My leg strength leaves something to be desired, so my quads were hurting a little (which is a good thing because it means I actually worked them today). 2. The thing that was keeping me from running faster for a longer amount of time was not my leg strength, it was the fact that I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest (I really pushed myself to the limit as far as heart rate is concerned). My heart isn't used to pounding so hard and fast yet. 3. I was noticing that my gait is unbalanced (I kind of turn to the left when I step with my left foot), which kind of bothered me. After I stretched later I noticed that my left hip flexor was hurting a lot more than anything else. Not sure what to do about this. Anyway, I know it isn't anything to write home about, but it felt good. I'll probably try to do something similar (hopefully better, faster, longer in the future) regularly, just so that I don't get lazy. It was fun, so why not?
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