8 Miles on the Treadmill

Sunshine and a friend playing in the fresh snow Thursday afternoon

Saturday I was supposed to run an 8 mile race, but after being rescheduled from the previous week, they ended up canceling it completely because of the ground conditions. It was a trail run (supposedly fairly flat, even trails, unlike that 15k trail run last summer), but we got 4-5" of snow Thursday, and it hadn't melted by Saturday morning. Of course, if it had started melting, the trails would have been a muddy mess.

Mr M was on kiddo duty, and I really wanted to run outside, but there was too much snow on the sides of the roads. With our narrow roads, being able to get off the road is important, and I didn't want to be jumping into snow drifts. So, I hit the treadmill yet again.

I started with a 15 min walking warmup, then ran for 16 min, walked for 5 min, ran for 31 min, walked for 10 min, ran for 30 min, walked for 10 min, ran for 25 min, and cooled down with a 10 min walk. The run/walk portion of my workout totaled 8.16 miles and the warmup/cool down added 1.19 miles for a total of 9.35 miles. I gradually increased, held, then decreased the incline during the 31 min section. It made the rest of the workout harder, but it felt good while I did it. My pace was 15:33, which is a lot slower than my recent treadmill long runs, but between the hill work and the longer walk breaks (10 min instead of 5 in), the slower pace is not unexpected or worrisome.

I need to incorporate more hillwork in my workouts, and even though it was tough to include it in a long run, it's important. The half is in four more weeks, so I'll be doing more and more hills between now and then. I don't enjoy them, but they're a necessary part of preparing for the race. And it will also help with the 5k I'm running this Saturday. Its course covers a lot of the same roads as my February 5k, which definitely had some hills I wasn't quite ready for.

I'm mostly over my cold, but I haven't been sleeping well and I was feeling pretty tired Saturday morning. Despite that, I pushed through and got my mileage in. So that's a win for me.

Overall, the workout felt good, even though I was tired and felt sluggish and my left glute was hurting again. I'm not sure if it's a pinched nerve or what, but it does make moving a lot more painful when it's acting up. My old standby rolling doesn't help, which is what makes me think it's a pinched nerve.

I did a bit of research into the pain I've been dealing with the last few weeks (it's getting worse as time goes by), and it seems there's two probable causes: sciatica caused by the pregnancy or pelvic girdle pain, also caused by the pregnancy. So probably the changes to my body caused by the pregnancy, and exacerbated by my training, have pinched a nerve. I've got an OB appointment this week and a chiropractor appointment next Monday, and I'm hoping that between the two I'll get some ideas of how to limit the pain.

I may need to find a maternity support belt that covers/supports more of my stomach- I feel like I'm jostling around too much, which does not feel good. Holding everything in place makes it feel better, but I'm now too big for the postpartum binder to go around my stomach. I don't remember feeling like this when running while pregnant with River, but I think my ligaments are a bit looser this time around since the pregnancies are so close together.

On the other hand, my endurance is improving. I was not nearly as wiped out Saturday and Sunday as  I have been in the past, despite being further along in my pregnancy. And I'm loving my compression socks for recovery post run.

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Monday- tired and feeling worse (I don't think the sub-freezing temps on Saturday helped my recovery from my cold), so I took the day off
Tuesday- treadmill walk
Wednesday- busy day running around and my glute was bothering me, so I took the day off again
Thursday- treadmill walk
Friday- treadmill walk
Saturday- treadmill long run with hills

Lots of walking, but I figured walking was better than nothing. Hopefully next week I'll get more running in since I am feeling a lot better now. Total mileage for the week was 15.48 miles, which is a lot closer to where it should be than what it's been the last couple weeks.