Heather's Training - Week 12

Training Day #31 - August 9, 2010

Walked to the gym tonight. I’m surprised my shoes didn’t melt into the asphalt. I really wasn’t in the mood to run, but I’m never in the mood to run, so that’s not at all surprising. I had some errands to run after work, so I didn’t get to the gym until close to 7:30. It took a lot of willpower to even get up and go. I thought the gym would be fairly empty this late in the evening, but turns out it was busier than I thought.

There was only one treadmill that I saw open and a girl had just left it to get on the elliptical. When I walked up to it, none of the lights on the screens were on, nor was the TV, so I assumed it was broken. I absentmindedly pressed a button and when nothing happened, I hopped off to wait my turn for a free t-mill (hmmm...t-mill...that sounds dumb, I won’t use that again). Two seconds later a guy walks up behind me and asks if I’m going to use that treadmill and I said no, that it doesn’t work. He presses a button and it starts right up. Wow, I felt like a jackass, and that’s exactly what I told him. He kind of looked at me like I was an idiot, then walked away, so that made me feel extra special. Turns out I had hit the “Stop” button before, which naturally meant nothing was going to start blinking. Sometimes I wonder about myself.

The run was nothing special. It was a bit of a lung struggle due to the humidity in the air, so I was sucking wind big time. I finished 2.75 miles in 30 minutes, and the 5K in 33:30. The last 4 minutes I was up to 6.5 on the treadmill to try to beat my time, but I realized that was a really stupid idea. My face looked like a beet when I was finished. I was kind of all over the place with my run speeds from a 5.4 to 5.7 then 5.5 then 5.9 then 6.0. I just need to find a pace that works best and stick to it the whole time.

Random spotting at the gym: Beefy No Neck. This guy was seriously nothing but muscle. His arms wouldn’t lower completely and there was nothing to define his neck from his head. Good grief buddy, it’s okay if you miss a day at the gym, or 50. Get a hobby.

Training Day #32 - August 11, 2010

33:07. Best time yet. I planned on running a full 2 miles before I took any breaks, and I did that in a little over 21 minutes. Sometimes it amazes me that I can actually do that. I’m honestly not sure how I accomplished it today, seeing as how it was triple digits outside and only about 4 degrees cooler than that at the gym. I don’t know why they don’t turn the A/C up. It’s not like people are standing around or sitting to get cold. And if they are, well they clearly shouldn’t be at the gym.

I took a couple breaks in the last 12 or so minutes, but all in all, it was a pretty good run. I did 2.8 miles in 30 minutes, which is a record for me. I even ran at 6.0 for a song and a half at the end. Go me.

Side note: Had on a red tank top tonight. You couldn’t tell the difference between it and the shade of my face/neck/arms after my run. Awesome.

Training Day #33 - August 14, 2010

It’s not a bad day out this morning, but I still decided to go to the gym instead of running outside. The clouds can be deceiving of the fireball behind them. I did walk to the gym and was amazed at how semi-pleasant it was.

I got really bored today. And bored very quickly. At 1.5 miles (15-1/2 minutes), I was antsy and really wanted to do something else. So, I hopped off the treadmill and ran over to the machines. I did some calf raises, some lat pull-downs, tricep push-backs, you know, the usual. Then, I headed back to the treadmill for the final mile and a half. I have no idea what made me split the time up. It’s not like they’re going to give us a time out during the race to work on our quads. But, I just needed something to break up all the running today. Wow, has it really come to the point where a 5K BORES me?! Good grief, this is weird, unfamiliar territory.

It was probably around 33 minutes total for the entire run. I didn’t pay too much attention to the exact times. I did buy a cheap pedometer at Target though, to better calculate my outdoor run times. I haven’t taken it out of the packaging yet. I guess it could be a good gauge to see if the treadmill is correct with its distance as well. I was running at a good 6.0 speed for a lot of my runs, so that’s pretty wild.

I just had a thought. Wouldn’t that be bad if the treadmills were off and I wasn’t actually running a full 5K all of these times? Shit. I don’t really want to think about that.