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Runtime Error: Floating holiday
I decided to take this past Friday off and use a my floating holiday.
Turns out it was National Chocolate Cake day. I hate chocolate cake and the prospect of being coerced into eating it at work on Friday was enough to drive me batty. I had missed the opportunity to take off Penguin Awareness Day so I figured this was the next best bet (I hope my floating holiday time will reset in time for Giraffe Awareness day, which doesn't currently exist, but a boy can dream.)
My wife and I also had some "business" to attend to that afternoon.
So I thought I'd mix things up and do my treadmill workout in the morning. Typically I treadmill after work, but prefer to do my outdoor running in the morning. I always feel sluggish on the mill in the morning and Friday was no different. My small brain tells me its because i have not yet had a full day of food and moving around at a moderate speed to loosen me up. Outdoors, you set a natural rhythm for warming up and getting into the real routine, but on the mill you are forcing yourself to start at a predetermined pace, even if it's slow, and is not connecting with your natural tempo.
Not complaining, it was a good hard workout.
The plan called for a 6 (six) mile tempo run, with the middle tempo portion at about 50 (fifty) seconds faster per mile than my anticipated Marathon pace and close to what I'd run in a 10k.
I've been nervous about the Newton Hills (and REALLY need to get out and run them before April) and found a routine online to simulate them indoors. You can find this program here: http://blog.thestepsfoundation.org/2010/12/newton-hills-simulation-run/
It's definitely worth checking out.
If you click the link, though, you'll see I went about it all wrong. I should not have tried to shoehorn this longer run into my much shorter . . . and faster . . . workout. After doing a third of a mile, at a blistering pace (for me :) ), with the treadmill incline set to 6 (six) I thought I was going to vomit. This is how they test you lactate threshold and VO2 max, right? Not what is expected from the mid-meek tempo run. So, after that I brought it down to 1 (one) for the rest of my time and struggled through the rest of the run, doing it the way my plan had suggested.
Lesson of the day, DONT TRY ANYTHING NEW! It will get you nowhere. I've had luck training with this particular method for 5 and 10ks and for 3 (three) half-marathons. I need to stick to it by the book for this one too. And I will reach my goal.
I will try simulation again, maybe on an "off-day" . . . and do it at a reasonable pace.
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