Thursday, October 05, 2006

Right before I throw up

This morning I decided to see how fast I could run a mile. The good (and bad) thing about the treadmill is that I can set an exact pace, although I know I'm being assisted by the moving belt so I'm not doing all the work myself. The bad is that I sometimes wonder whether I could go just a little faster if I wasn't being paced. I decided I would try 7.0 mph or an 8:34 mile. The first 3 minutes I didn't think I could make it to a mile, but then after 3 minutes I felt alright. I got to 1.0 miles and decided to see if I could make it to 10 minutes. At 10 minutes I decided I'd shoot for 1.5 miles and at 12:52, just when I thought I might throw up, I hit 1.5 miles! Definitely the best time I've had for running in years- if not ever. I walked at 4.5mph for 3 minutes to let my heart rate recover- it was 174bpm at the end of the run and after 3 minutes I was back down to 132bpm. Then I jogged at 10:00 pace for a mile and I ended up with 2.2 miles in 20 minutes, then a 5 minute walking cool down. A short but speedy and tiring workout.

1 comment:

ShesAlwaysWrite said...

I know what you mean about being helped by the belt - I discovered this the humiliating way when I tried to transfer my consistent 1 mile treadmill runs into an outdoor trail and could only run for a quarter of a mile at a time.