A 5 Mile Treadmill Run

is not what I had planned for Saturday morning, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Saturday was cold (hovering around freezing) and I had a massive headache, but I skipped my long run last week because of other obligations last Saturday, so despite the issues, I had to get a long run in on Saturday.

I decided to suck it up and hit the treadmill for a couple hours. That would be better than possibly getting stuck a couple miles from home while feeling crappy.

I lowered the incline on the treadmill as much as possible and just kept a slow, easy pace and it actually wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be.

A bonus to running inside: convenient potty breaks since the basement bathroom is 12 steps from the treadmill.

The miles went quicker than I thought- it only took me 90 min to run and walk 5.2 miles.

I walked 15 min, ran 30 min (with a quick potty break in the middle), walked 5 min, ran 30 min, and walked 10 min, for a total of 60 min running, 30 walking.

It was a bit more walking than I'd like, but I got a slow start (I was distracted by a "quick" google search I started when I got on the treadmill and lost track of time), and then realized at the end I was too close to the 5 mile mark to run anymore. I didn't want to go over the 5 mile mark since my previous longest run was 4.2 miles. At this point I'm including my warmup and cool down walking in my mileage (though I don't when I'm outside, so I need to be more consistent when I'm inside).

The big issue I think I have with running on the treadmill is the clock staring at me. I don't stare at my Garmin while I run outside, but it's hard to avoid it on the treadmill. A watched clock barely moves.

Saturday I set my laptop in front of the display and tried to glance at it as little as possible. Of course, the clock on my laptop was still visible, but those numbers aren't bright red and are a lot smaller, so they're easier to ignore. Watching tv shows while running also helped keep my brain from dwelling on that annoying clock.

The slow and steady pace at a level incline also made the whole thing much more doable than it's been in the past when I've tried to run at steeper inclines and faster speeds. For a long run, slow, steady, and flat is the next best thing to actually being outside.

------------

This past week I switched up my training schedule a bit. I had been running on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and walking Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, Tuesday and Thursday are my busy days and trying to squeeze a run in and still have energy in the evening just wasn't working out well.

So last week I ran Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, and walked Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. It worked out much better with my schedule, so I'll keep it up. I try to have one run day focus on hills, one on speed work, and one on distance. I may be doing a lot of running inside, but I still have outdoor races to prepare for and none of them are flat. Even the supposedly flat New Year's Day 5k wasn't actually that flat: it just had rolling hills instead of steep hills.

I've decided to start recording my weekly mileage to make sure I'm getting enough miles in before the half marathon. I've been recording my daily mileage for months now, but I haven't been adding up my weekly mileage. I went back and did that for the last couple months, and it was quite informative about my training habits.

I usually under train for half marathons, but I have to be a lot more careful this time around since I'm pregnant and don't want to put undue stress on my body and/or the baby. So last week's mileage: 16.65 miles.