A Treadmill "First:" 3x1 Mile Intervals

Every-other Friday is "speed day." After dropping the boys off at school on Friday, I drove past a local track hoping that the sun had cleared it off this past week (we had a few 40+ degree days). I was planning a 3x1 mile workout in my head already. But I was bummed to see it still looking like this:

There's a track under there. Damn it.

So I figured I'd try that workout on the treadmill. I've done tempo runs and 2x2 mile intervals on the treadmill (that I normally do on running paths), but I'd never tried a workout that was generally meant for the TRACK on the TREADMILL instead.

GOOD NEWS: things started off well as when I went downstairs to get started, our fat cat was dropping a stinky log in the litter box:

Thanks. A. Lot. Kermit.

But then the run went pretty well.

I've noted before that it's a bit annoying that our treadmill only shows distance to the 1/10 of a mile (not 1/100 which is more standard on a gym treadmill), so it's annoying starting and ending an interval when you're not really sure when it's going to click over. And it's slow to get to speed, so I knew I'd be fighting with that a bit.

I warmed up for 1.2 miles, and then walked for 0.2 miles. (Well, more precisely, I walked for 0.1 mile, and then after a few more seconds of walking, I started getting the treadmill up to speed so that I'd be "at speed" when the interval officially started.)

The obvious benefit of the treadmill for these is that I can really control the speed, so I only sped up. My first interval was 5:47. My second was 5:38.

Here's a shot of my treadmill screen as I walking before my 3rd interval:

The high parts of the graph are my warm-up and my first 2 intervals.

My 3rd and final interval was 5:26. Nice.

Here's the treadmill (and TV) after my last interval. Yes, that Wanda exploding with "chaos magic" as she first builds the "hex" in WandaVision (kind of a spoiler if you haven't seen episode 8 yet, but also kinda not):

Notice the final interval jumps up a notch for the final 3 minutes: that was 11+ mph.

So the workout looked like this in my log:

TREADMILL: 3x1 mile intervals with around 3:00 walking rest between.

WU: 3:55, 3:51, 1:32 (0.2 miles)

0.2 miles walking: 3:15

FIRST INTERVAL: 10.2 mph to 10.5 mph. Half mile splits of 2:55.20 + 2:51.94 = 5:47.14.

0.2 miles walking: 2:39

SECOND INTERVAL: 10.5 mph to 10.8 mph. Half mile splits of 2:51.20 + 2:47.35 = 5:38.55.

0.2 miles walking: 2:15

THIRD INTERVAL: 10.8 mph to 11.1 mph. Half mile splits of 2:44.50 + 2:41.81 = 5:26.31.

0.2 miles walking: 3:05

CD: 4:07, 3:50

6.0 miles total

So notice my "0.2 miles walking" were wildly different times: that's what I get for not knowing how soon it will click over to the next 0.1 mile where I have to start my interval. I started running much sooner before interval #3 so that made that walking break the shortest (at 2:15). And because I wasn't concerned about "getting up to speed" after my last interval for my cool down, that interval was longer (at 3:05). The first walking break was the longest (3:15) because it was early in the workout and my brain was still working, so I knew about how long it would be before the next 0.1 started. As I get farther into ANY workout, my mind slows down.

So 5:37.33 / mile interval isn't too bad! This is another workout I'll try again! Winter is almost over here, so I don't think I have to worry about this much more, but I don't think I'd drop down to any shorter intervals than 1 mile intervals on our treadmill. MAYBE 800s, but if I'm running that hard/fast, I should be outside. And tracks will be clear of snow shortly. (I hope.)