Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!: February 2023

Faster-Than-Normal Treadmill Long Run

>> Tuesday, February 28, 2023

After a decent 2x2 mile interval workout 10 days ago and some solid long runs over the last few weeks, I had a long run that "tested" me yesterday.

I started the winter running my "middle at-pace miles" from 8.9 mph speeding up to 10.0 mph. I quickly upped that a little doing 9.0 to 10.1 mph. (And the majority of those were 11-12 miles with 6 "at pace" miles.)

Yesterday, after a weekend of eating crap and partying at a family wedding...

The reception hall was part of an old bank (notice the vault in the background).

Playing the next morning with cousins.

...I didn't have high hopes for my long run. But I still wanted to push myself. So I started at 9.1 mph planning to go to 10.2 mph over 6 miles. But part way into it (and it was NOT because I was feeling good), I decided to try to go 6.5 miles and up to 10.3 mph.

And I succeeded! It all went as planned! I think because I was READY for it to suck, I had the mental wherewithal to suffer through this workout. My half mile splits for the 6.5 "at pace" miles were:

3:17, 3:15, 3:13, 3:11, 3:09, 3:07, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 2:59, 2:58, 2:56, 2:54

= 40:13, or 6:11.23/mile for those 6.5 miles

Being it was faster and farther than normal, it was my fastest "at pace" miles in a treadmill long run maybe ever. (They are usually aroujnd 6:18/mile or so with "faster" workouts being around 6:15/mile.)

Boom. Nice.

All in all, it was 12 miles in 81 minutes. I'm happy with that!

Treadmill 2x2 Mile Intervals

>> Saturday, February 25, 2023

I hadn't done these in a while...

About a week ago, I hit the treadmill for a simple 2x2 mile interval workout. I think the last time I did this workout on the treadmill was about 2 years ago where I started at 9.8 mph and slowly creeped up. That first interval back then was too slow as I ended up running 11:50 and 11:24.

So I knew I'd start this round of intervals faster than 10 mph. I was just consistent for the first 2 mile interval starting at 10.2 mph and speeding up 0.1 mph every 1/2 mile (10.2 mph through 10.5 mph):

2:57, 2:54, 2:53, 2:51 = 11:36

That felt OK, so I planned to start the 2nd interval a bit faster. I walked for 0.2 miles which was a 2:34 rest (well, technically walked about 0.15 miles before speeding up the treadmill to get up to speed by 0.2 miles). Then I cranked it up to 10.3 mph and planned to speed up the same as the first interval (0.1 mph every 1/2 mile), but I sped up twice between 1 and 1.5 miles, and twice between 1.5 and 2 miles to end at 10.8 mph:

2:55, 2:52, 2:50, 2:46 = 11:25

Here was the "graph" on the treadmill after I was walking for a moment after my 2nd interval:

Two big "plateaus" of 10 mph speed.

Normal pace and HR graphs.

Like I mentioned at the top, it was Feb 2021 when I last did this on the treadmill in 11:50 and 11:24. The last few times I did this outside were in Oct 2022 in 11:43 and 11:49, Mar 2022 in 11:47 and 11:35 (SOLID times), and Oct 2021 in 11:43 and 11:48. Both of those Oct versions were after the TC 10 Mile and before a half marathon.

I can't compare the treadmill versions of this to outside versions, but I know I can go a bit faster the next time I do this on the treadmill. I can hit that last half of the final interval a bit harder.