Race Day: Mission Accomplished

I have to say that my 5K didn't look quite like I thought it would. Matthew ended up having to work today which put a big kink in my plans for the family to cheer me on to the finish line down the street. The boys were sleeping so well, so I decided to try the treadmill. Part of me wanted to say forget about it, just run it on Monday. But I also wanted to run. So, I set up the treadmill. I couldn't decided if I should actually attempt the 5K or not so I decided just to start the 4 mph/20 minute program. The program builds you up to 4 mph and you maintain it for 6 minutes the come back down as a cool down. Well, I had gotten about a third of the way in and decided to go ahead and do the 2 min walk/3 min run. By the end of the 20 minutes I had done 3 sets and gone 1.28 miles. I figured then that it would take about 9 sets - 3 for each mile. As soon as the program ended I restarted the treadmill on manual and just adjusted the speed for each set. I had gone about .25 miles when the boys came down to the basement so they were indeed there while I 'raced'.

I experienced some interesting discoveries during my race. I figured my runs have been about 4 mph on the road. I was surprised to learn that the 4 mph on the treadmill was too slow! I ran comfortably at 4.5 for my sets and my walks were 3.5. Towards the end I did bring it down to 3.0 because I could feel my heart rate was too high but it was only for one or two sets. Since I restarted the treadmill in the middle, I was constantly trying to calculate how many more miles I needed to go to finish my 5K but just to make it simpler I decided when the counter hit 2 miles then I know I completed the race. With the restart, I was at 1.80 when I decided I just wanted to be done. I should have done another set of walk/run but instead I upped my speed to 5 mph and didn't stop until I reached the 2 mile mark. So for almost a whole quarter of a mile I ran at 5 mph!! I was so amazed at myself. It felt so good :) I stayed on the treadmill and slowly brought my pace down for another almost quarter mile. My total time with warm-up and cool down was 20 + 34:44 = 54:44 and my distance was 1.28 + 2.27 = 3.55 miles.

I think the treadmill experience was so much better because the terrain was so smooth and flat. When I am running around the neighborhood there are ups and downs and uneven surfaces and a dog to pay attention to. The other advantage of the treadmill is that it is constantly moving so I have to keep pace. Basically it helps me move along. The downfall is that the basement is very dusty. I could see me getting sick from trying to run and take in all that dirt on a regular basis.

I have felt really good all day after the run. My legs aren't too sore yet either though I am sure tomorrow they will be feeling it. I decided to keep up with the training and joined the 5K rookie program but starting on week 5. The first 4 weeks are the same as what I have been doing. Week 5 repeats the 2 min/3 min interval and then the following week it is 1 min/4 min. The 5K will fall on the second week of December. The goal is to run the 5K with no walking. We'll see how it goes :)