I seriously cannot wait until it warms up and daylight savings time begins. Three out of my four runs this week were on the treadmill. Ugh.

On Tuesday, I went to the gym to do my easy three on the treadmill. This week I was doing 5 minute running and 1.5 minute walking intervals. (Are you noticing a pattern yet?) It went well, despite how utterly monotonous the treadmill is, and I just tried to zone out to my music for the most part. I need to create a new playlist post for the stuff I’ve been listening to lately that really help me on these boring treadmill runs. On my last 5 minute interval, I increased the speed by 0.1 every minute to end on a high note and to make sure I was adequately warmed up for my strides.

Strides this week were more structured than last week, since I set my watch interval timer. I did 40 seconds fast, then 40 seconds recovery. My watch starts beeping when the next interval is 5 seconds away, so I would enter the new speed at around 3 seconds to go, which seemed to balance out well. The first six I did at 7 mph and the last two at 7.5.

My speed workout on Thursday was my first of four tempo runs. I have 10:45 to 11:15 min/mi listed as my tempo pace, but I didn’t want to push too much, since (a) that’s a little aggressive for me right now and (b) it was my first one. I was to do 10 minutes at tempo pace, 2 minutes recovery, then another 10 minutes at tempo pace.

To warm up, I did a five minute progressive walk (from 2.0-3.5), a four minute jog (at 4.2), and a one minute walk (at 3.5). (I never record my walking warmup, so I started my Garmin when I started the jogging part of my warmup.)

For the first interval, I set the treadmill (yes, I’m still not doing these with the group even though I said I was going to) to 5.2, which equates to about a 11:30 min/mi. My footpod recorded me at about an 11 min/mi, but I think I just need to calibrate it.

It was hard, but I got through it and relished my 2 minute walking break. For the second interval, I changed my speed by 0.1 every minute, fluctuating from 5.2 up to 5.6 (10:42 min/mi) and back down to cover my whole tempo range. And I finished it! I like changing my speed every minute or so on the treadmill because it gives me something to look forward to besides counting down the minutes. Even though I made it through both intervals, I’m still nervous to put them together for my 20 minute tempo next week!

I flip-flopped my 5 mile run and my long run this week. I hung out with Amanda on Friday night, and so we did our long runs together on Saturday morning. She’s a little slower than me, so that made it easy to make sure I wasn’t running too fast and was keeping my pace conversational. It was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. It was around 50 and sunny when we went out at 9am. Shorts and short-sleeves, yay!

I started out being the complaining one. I really hate the first two mile of all runs. So each time our walking interval ended and our running interval started, I would groan. But my legs finally loosened up about two miles into our 7.5 mile run.

About halfway through, Amanda felt the urge to pee, but there was nothing around. I tried to get her to go in the woods, but she wouldn’t. So we ended up a little slower around that time because it had slowed her to a walk. We finally came to a building where some national guard training or something was going on and the nice soldiers let us in to use the restroom. After that, we had less than three miles to go.

This is where the roles reversed, and she resumed my complaining from miles one and two. I was all warmed up and felt like I could run forever, but she was getting tired. I tried encouraging her, but she would just glare at me. On our final interval, I told her to try to push the pace. I pushed mine all the way up past 5k pace! The average pace for that five minute interval was just over a 10 min/mi. Woohoo!

After that, I went home and continued to enjoy the nice weather (it got up to around 65 that afternoon). However, it didn’t last. The next day was cold and rainy. I kept hoping for a break in the rain, but one never came. I have no adequate running clothes for going out in a 35 degree rain. So after I woke up from my afternoon nap, I went to the gym and did my five miles on the treadmill.

All in all, it was a good week of training. I am just ready to ditch the treadmill!