8 Miles on the Treadmill

the "BIG STORM" early last week proved disappointing in our neck of the woods

Last week was a pretty good workout week.
Monday- treadmill speed
Tuesday- treadmill walk
Wednesday- treadmill run
Thursday- rest day since I had to go to the DMV to register our new car (we lost track and waited till our temp tags had almost expired- oops!)
Friday- treadmill walk hills
Saturday- treadmill long run

There was a Scout recharter workshop Saturday morning followed by a birthday party in the early afternoon, so I didn't get on the treadmill until late afternoon. This did not give me enough recovery time before church the next morning- I was exhausted all day Sunday, despite getting a good night's sleep. I'll have to be more careful about when I do my long runs since I need to be a lot more on top of things at church. River must have picked up on how tired I was, because he was all over the place.

I started with a warmup walk for 10 min (0.45 miles), then ran for 30 min, walked for 5 min, ran for 30 min, walked for 5 min, ran for 30 min, walked for 5 min, ran for 9 more min, then ended with a cool down walk for 13 min (0.55 miles).

It took me 99 min of running and 15 min of walking (114 minutes total) to hit 8 miles. My warm up and cool down added another mile, for 9 miles total. 8 miles in 114 minutes is only 3 minutes more than I took to run 7 miles last week. I'm not convinced I ran faster, so perhaps my time and/or distance was a little off.

Our third-hand treadmill is having problems and we'll probably need to replace it soon. The fuse/ breaker/something that makes it stop working popped three times during my workout (it did once before the week before last, and Mr M has had problems with it too, but never this many times in one workout). Every time the treadmill died I had to guess at what my time and distance were at and then figure out how much more I needed to do. So I may have been a little off. Or maybe I really did run faster- I did feel pretty good while running.

Either way, the treadmill is getting annoying, but since we only paid $50 on craigslist 3 or 4 years ago, I can't complain too much. We've definitely got our money's worth, but I hate to have to go through the hassle of finding a reliable replacement.

My total mileage for the week: 17.08 miles, about 1 more mile than last week's total.

Last week I mentioned that I was trying out some compression socks. Back in December I won a pair of compression socks and a gift card from Hylete during the 12 days of Christmas giveaway run by Vacation Races (they're the ones who organized the Great Smoky Mountains half marathon that I ran in September).

I've thought about trying compression socks for awhile now, but I've always been too cheap to buy them, and there's so many options- which to choose? Since I got some for free, I finally got to try them out and see if I like them.

I first wore them while walking and they felt supportive, but not restrictive like I was afraid they would. I then wore them while running short distances on the treadmill. They felt a bit restrictive, but they also helped with the sporadic calf pains I've been having. I haven't been brave enough to wear them on a long run yet, but I have worn them after my workouts. Post-workout is actually my favorite time to wear the compression socks since they make my legs feel so much better! They decrease muscle fatigue and reduce pain, which leaves my legs much less sore then they would be otherwise.

Have you tried compression socks? Do you like them? Hate them?