Two Treadmill Workouts: a GOOD One and a BAD One!

About 10 days ago, the boys and I left for a 2500 mile road trip because Henry qualified for the JUNIOR OLYMPICS IN CHARLOTTE in fencing! It was over President's Day weekend, and it worked out so they didn't have to miss any school! I'll have more on that shortly once I download a few photos (but you can find about 5 posts on Instagram recently about the trip), and I also need to be downloading photos from our Mexico trip last month as well. And I'm doing a lot of photography at my sons' school for an upcoming musical, so I've been editing about 900 photos over the last few days as well. Sheesh.

I'll have more about the trip soon. But here are the 2 treadmill workouts I did while away from home.

Friday was out biggest day on the road: from 4:15 a.m. until about 9:00 p.m. we were in the car for 13+ hours. That morning we left a hotel in northern Indiana, and they didn't have a working treadmill (one was "out of order," and one was literally stuck on 1 mph). So I didn't get my normal morning workout done. We pulled into Charlotte after a day on the road, and we ALL NEEDED TO MOVE OUR BODIES even though it was late:

Pulling into downtown!

We quickly got our room set and our things unpacked for the next 2 nights. Then the boys played in the pool as I hit the treadmill that looked through a window directly into the pool:

Selfie after a quick warm-up on the treadmill.

I had hoped to get in a treadmill speed workout on this trip because I REALLY like doing those on treadmills that AREN'T MINE. And I say that for 2 reasons: ours changes speed very slowly, and ours only has TENTHs of miles, not HUNDREDTHs of miles in the read-out. Our treadmill is great for "just running," but not great for speed workouts.

I didn't have time to look back to older workouts, so I just prepped to run 3x1 mile intervals on the treadmill. I warmed up for a mile, walked for 0.2 miles (and snapped that photo above), and then sped up. Here's what I ran, with about 2:20-2:50 walking between (for about 0.2 miles):

10.8 and 10.9 mph for 0.4 each, then 11.0 for the final 0.2 miles:

2:46 + 2:44 = 5:31.0


11.0 and 11.1 mph for 0.4 each, then 11.2 for the final 0.2 miles:

2:43 + 2:41 = 5:24.9


11.3 mph for 0.4, 11.4 for 0.3, 11.5 for 0.15, 11.6 for final 0.15:

2:38 + 2:36 = 5:15.6

Those felt good! I was slower on the treadmill back in November, and a bit slower on the track in December.

In the pool post-run around 9:45 p.m.


Sweaty post-run.


Soaked.


Nothing surprising here.


Garmin splits.

When I'm running HARD on the treadmill (both in this workout and in every workout at home), the "arm pump distance" registers a little short as seen above. But note my 2 warm-up half-miles: running easier always registers as a bit long.

We slept in on Saturday (our "lazy day" in Charlotte), then Henry fenced on Sunday before we drove a good chunk back home towards MN. We made it to central Illinois for that night. I got up early on Monday morning (President's Day) for a long treadmill run. There was 1 treadmill, and the TV attached to it only played TNT or ESPN 2. No joke.

Post-run with sweaty drip marks.

This was my failed run. After a weekend of sleeping in odd beds and eating crap, I don't know what I was expecting. It was to be a "normal" long run of 2.5 miles easier, 6 miles harder, and then 2.5 miles easier again. But part way through the harder miles, I knew I wouldn't make it the entire way. I got through 5 harder miles and was OK with that - I started those faster miles at 9.4 mph and sped up every 1/2 mile to 10.3 mph. Half mile splits for those harder miles looked like this:

3:11, 3:09, 3:06, 3:05, 3:03, 3:01, 2:59, 2:57, 2:56, 2:55

= 30:25 (6:05.00 / mile pace)

Overall, the run was only 10.1 miles in 1:09:03 (6:50/mile). I just could NOT keep going - I was fried.

Sweaty butt marks post-run.


Passed out boys in the room.


A big hotel breakfast an hour later.

We only had 6+ hours to drive back on Monday, so that felt GOOD after 10 hours in the car the day before! We were happy to be home!

More on Henry's Junior Olympics in the next couple of posts or so...