Treadmill days

This winter sucks. It's cold. Snowy. Icy. I don't mind snow so much now that I don't have to go to work during blizzards, but it makes running outside a wee bit difficult. I can't use the jogging stroller because it's just too cold for LightRunner. So I've been stuck on the treadmill. The treadmill doesn't bother me that much because I am always either doing intervals so I am constantly changing the speed, or doing an easy run in which I still change the speeds but slower (so I'll pick a range of speeds and do kind of a slow pyramid run to pass the time). Tuesday I attempted my first tempo run.

Ugh.

My goal was to warm up for 10 minutes, do 20 minutes of tempo, and then cool down. After the first 5 minutes of the tempo I was dying. Not my legs, but my mind. I convinced myself I had to go to the bathroom, so I stopped and went to the bathroom. I finished up the next 5 minutes. It felt like 3 days. I stopped and walked for a minute or two and started up again. I didn't get the rush I usually get when I do intervals. The worst part is that I was watching videos on my iPad and I still couldn't keep my mind from failing. Staying at one pace just kills me. I did a strength routine after and redeemed myself a little.

Wednesday was not a running day. I had a cardio core routine to do to fill both my cardio and core requirements. It also sucked. It was too "dancey" and choreographed. That's the main reason the only cardio I've ever been consistent with is running. Running is just one foot in front of the other.

If Tuesday is my moderately hard day, Thursday is my hard hard day. But I woke up completely unmotivated. We had the phone company coming to switch our provider. Chewie wanted to play memory. I was cold and tired and so not in the mood to do anything. But when I got LightRunner down for a nap, I forced myself to get on the treadmill (after playing a game of memory). I had been doing 45 second intervals at a 7:30 pace (8.0 with a 1% incline) but I wanted to push it to 60 seconds. I had done the 45 seconds (up from 30) for two weeks so I thought it was time. It wasn't until I logged it that I realized the two 45 second workouts were not consecutive weeks, so I probably should have given myself another week of them. I did the first 60 seconds and it was tough. I decided to alternate 60 and 45 seconds so I wound up doing 5 of each (followed by either 60 seconds or 75 seconds of walking). Usually when I'm done I cool down for only 5 minutes but I made myself do the whole 10 minutes. It was tough but I felt so much better than I did after that tempo run. When I logged it I saw that I cut 40 seconds off my average pace from the last interval run I did. I followed it up with a hard 40 minute superset sculpt routine. It's usually challenging, but after the intervals it was really hard. But that's the point--hard days hard.

When I was done I was wicked tired but energized at the same time. There's something so much more fulfilling about a successful workout when you didn't even want to do it in the first place! I also realized that I'm building up my interval runs… so I can build up my tempo runs too. I don't have to start out perfect. I can start out breaking it up every 5 minutes and then every 7 and eventually get to where I need to be. I'm not following a plan, I'm not in training for a particular race. I can take my time and have a better chance of not giving up.

Today is an easy day. Easy recovery run and a simple core routine. I'm not sure how easy it will be to fit it in because I also have my kidney stone checkup ultrasound today. Hopefully I'll be able to do it all. I'm less confident about tomorrow's long run. It's warmer than it's been, but it may rain or snow. If I can't deal with a tempo on the treadmill, I'm sure I don't have a long run in me. It'll take me twice as long and I just don't have time for that. I'm hoping for a break with the crappy weather tomorrow instead.