The Best Treadmill

This morning I knew I needed to get a decently long run in. That didn't mean that I wanted to do it. Drew had to pester me repeatedly to get up and all I wanted to do was press snooze. I'm not sure how I feel about running in the cold and dark in the mornings on the weekend, so I opted to go to the gym instead.

Our regular gym by our apartment is under renovation, so  I went to the 24-hour gym fir the first time in quite a while. It's pretty small and they only have one of the best kind of treadmills, so I was lucky to grab that before it got really busy.

I ran 3.00 miles before I had to take a quick bathroom break.

I was really excited about the treadmills at this gym because instead of having a 60-minute limit like usual, they had a 97-minute limit. 97 seems like a really random number, but whatever it was, I was glad for the extension.

I ran the first 3 miles at 5.6 speed, which felt easy and relaxing. After re-starting, I ran the next 4.4 miles at the same 5.6 speed. I had a Gu around mile 5, just like how I've been training.  After that, Drew left the gym and I wanted to finish up and get home myself, so I decided to bump up the speed.

At first I thought I'd just do some intervals, so I bumped it up to 8.0. Funny thing was that it felt relatively easy. So I ran at 8.0 for the next mile and a half. Which was a longer interval than I had been planning on. And then I bumped it up to 9.0 for most of the rest of the run. I finished the last quarter mile at 10.0. I pretty much felt awesome after that and walked for a few minutes to cool-down before heading home.

It also made me realize that although I don't have a lot of races planned for 2011 yet, it doesn't mean that I can't start thinking about what my race goals should be.

So, with that said, I'm still planning on this marathon in January. After that, I think I want to focus on running a speedy 5K. There is a NYRR 5K (it might actually be the only one) in March. I did the race last year too, and it is a bit hilly, so I think "speedy" is something that is yet to be determined, but that's my next race goal.

It seems pretty reasonable to me to think that if I can run comfortably at a 7:30/minute pace or faster after running 7 miles already, this should be something I can achieve.  Although it's probably also a good reminder that a good warm-up is really important. 

I have to say that it's sort-of nice to have something else to look forward to. I do much better when I've got goals or races to train for.

Running
Time: 31:59
Distance: 3.00 miles
Pace: 10:39/mile

Time: 64:54
Distance: 7.00 miles
Pace: 9:16/mile