Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Bitter Cold, Better Treadmill

Today I got to experience both sides of running in a Canadian Winter. First, before the Sun was up and weakly trying to warm our City, I trotted out for an easy 5km at recovery pace. It was -13.5C (7.7F for those that use that freaky scale where something positive can still be positively freezing!) when I left the house, and the wind was definitely adding to the chill factor. Let's just say that I'm glad to have decided to put on that extra fleece jacket...

Then at lunchtime it was back to the great indoors for a bit of speed work on the treadmill. I didn't veer too far from what's been working since last November, but I did push the speed portion of the workout up by a notch to 8.9mph:

DurationSpeedPace (miles)Pace (km)
5:006.7mph8:57/mile5:34/km
5:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
5:008.9mph6:44/mile4:11/km
4:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
4:008.9mph6:44/mile4:11/km
3:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
3:008.9mph6:44/mile4:11/km
2:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
2:008.9mph6:44/mile4:11/km
1:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
1:008.9mph6:44/mile4:11/km
5:006.7mph8:57/mile5:34/km
40:007.9mph7:39/mile4:45/km

The total ended up being 5.22 miles (8.4km) and it felt a bit easier than similar workouts that I remember doing in the past. Perhaps it was the big fan that I pointed in my direction to cool me off? Who knows. I definitely didn't feel that energetic just before the workout and was yawning up a storm, but sometimes those things don't really come into it and you end up surprising yourself.

Good day of running, both in and out of doors...

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4 Comments:

Blogger Nelly said...

It sounds like your training is going really well! You are still a decent amount away from your 30K race in late March, but the way you are running it wouldn't surprise me if you beat your half marathon PR during that race even though a 30K is 19 miles long. If you ran a half marathon again right about that time, I bet you would destroy your half marathon PR for sure =) Maybe try to schedule a half marathon after the 30K but before the Marathon in October?

February 9, 2011 at 7:54 PM  
Blogger Vava said...

Nelly: Thanks for the confidence booster! I am planning to run a HM at the end of May, the same one I did last year in Ottawa. Just have to get off my butt and sign up for it...

February 10, 2011 at 8:44 AM  
Blogger Nitmos said...

YEah, I don't get the treadmill speed work thing. I'm glad you can do it though. Probably a requirement in your neck of the weather woods!

February 10, 2011 at 2:26 PM  
Blogger Nelly said...

Awesome, yea I think you will obliterate your half marathon PR at the race in May then!

February 10, 2011 at 8:50 PM  

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