Wimp

I took another rest day yesterday. I was possibly going to swim with Laura yesterday morning, but she sent me an e-mail at 2:30 Friday morning saying that she was still working and she didn't think swimming was in the cards for her. I can't say that I blame her! I also was fine with the extra rest, of course. It is really funny to me that not that long ago I was really beating myself up for skipping workouts and now that my plan says that I only have to work out Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday & Sunday, I don't feel bad about not going on the other days. I know that I won't be able to do that forever, but it's nice to not feel bad about myself when I'm not going to the gym.

This morning I was planning on running in the New York Road Runners Fred Lebow 5-Mile Race. I went on Thursday night and picked up my t-shirt and number ... see ...


So, the t-shirt has a creepy guy on the front, but it's my first race t-shirt that actually fits, so I like that aspect. I also thought that picking up the t-shirt and my number before the morning of the race would inspire me to try running in 10 degree weather.

Turns out that's not the case. I skipped the race. Drew met with his personal trainer this morning and we were thinking that we'd meet after my race if I went and go for breakfast. However, Drew sent me a text saying that he'd left his phone at home and he was texting from his trainer's phone and I should just let him know what I was doing about going to the race. I texted back saying that I was skipping the race and would be going to the gym instead. When I got a text back saying "Wimp," I knew that Drew hadn't sent that! He's not that mean. It had to have been his trainer, Billy!

Truth be told, I do feel a little bit bad that I didn't make it to the race. Although when I was walking to the gym, it was really cold outside and I was wearing plenty of clothes and my winter coat! When I had mentioned to Laura last week that I was thinking of doing this race in the cold, she said that I should just do the distance at the gym if I really felt so compelled.

I listened to her wise advice and headed to the gym with the idea that I'd run 5 miles on the treadmill instead of the 3-4 that were in the training plan for today. The last couple of times that I've gone running on the treadmill, I've walked for a few minutes first to get warmed up. Normally, I then stop the treadmill and start fresh for the running so that when the mileage gets to the desired point, I don't have to remember that I also walked X miles beforehand. Of course, I forgot to start fresh today!

I was having an okay run today. I started at 5.5 speed and went up from there. I still had the problem of running into the bar and so I'd just bump it up by 0.1 every time that happened. I got up to 6.3 before I felt like I was running too fast and had to slow down again. The first part of my run, I was kept entertained by a guy in the workout studio in front of the treadmills. He was wearing construction boots, jeans and a t-shirt and he went through a really entertaining circuit of exercises for about the first 20 minutes that I was running, so it was fun to watch. I tried to take a picture with my phone, but since I was moving and he was moving, it didn't really turn out very well, so it's not worth posting.

Once I got to 4.0 miles, I was really excited that I only had a mile to go. Except then I realized that I had forgotten to reset the treadmill and I really had 1.25 miles to go. I'm not going to lie, in that moment, I got really frustrated and wanted to quit right then. Instead I hung on for another half mile and had run 4.5 miles. Then I ended up stopping and walking. While I was walking, I was trying to tell myself that it was okay since I had done more than the plan called for today, but I realized that I was being a wimp and I should just finish the 5.0 miles that I set out to do.

So, I bumped the treadmill up to 7.0 and ran for 0.25 miles and then bumped it down to 6.0 and finished the last half-mile really quickly. I was so happy with myself that I finished, even if I did take a two-minute walking break and I had to talk myself into it. It really made me feel better about the workout knowing that I did finish in the end what I had set out to do.

I did realize today that I think the treadmills are going to start being a problem pretty soon on my longer runs. Today since I didn't restart the treadmill, I was really close to running out of the 60 minute time limit they impose on you with the warm-up time at the beginning factored into the total time I was on. And I did have to restart the whole thing for the last half-mile, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to finish in 60 minutes. Considering the fact that tomorrow I'm supposed to run between 6-7 miles and I've been running over 10 minute miles recently, I'm not too sure how that'll work out. I guess we'll have to figure it out in the morning!

Run #1
Time: 46: 52
Distance: 4.50 miles
Pace: 10:24/mile
Calories: 667
Maximum HR: 193
Average HR: 184

Run #2
Time: 4:29
Distance: 0.50 miles
Pace: 8:58/mile
Calories: 66
Maximum HR: 195
Average HR: 191