Week Eight, day three - treadmill

Another treadmill run today! Funny, my legs and feet always feel more sore after running on a treadmill then on the ground, but not sure if that's also because I'm running more now, so things hurt more. Anyway, here's what I did today:

5 min - walk
28 min - run (whooo!)
2:30 - walk
3 min - run
2 min - walk

And because I was on a treadmill, I have some more stats, that I'm sure anyone reading would be fascinated by (regarding speed).

First 14 minutes - ran at 8.8 kph
Next 9 minutes - ran at 8.2 kph
Final 5 minutes - ran at 7.8 kph
Extra 3 minutes at end - ran at 8.0

So that's an average pace of 8.2 kph (sorry americans, this is all going to remain mostly in metrics).

I completed 5 kilometers within 40 minutes, but at least seven of those minutes were walking (the five minute warmup plus the 2 1/2  min at the end.

My final stats were:

total distance - 5.3 km
total time - 43 min 47 seconds (including final "cool down" walk)
calories burned - 370
weight - 64.15 (141.4 lbs)

I did try, at first, to run 9.5 kph - there's no way I would have completed 28 minutes, or 14 minutes, at that speed. I could do it, but it was wearing me out too much. I was happy to see that I could run at 8.8 kph for the first half, but I think that the key to me actually finishing the 28 minutes without stopping was decreasing my speed halfway through. It really did make a difference. While I am running on a treadmill (it's still not super cold in Amsterdam yet, but winter is winter) I suppose I should make it a goal to eventually do the full thirty minutes at 9.0 kph. the metric/mile thing is messing me up whenever I google stuff about "typical 5k speeds," but I think I can aim safely for an 11-minute mile, which is uh... hmm, probably still too quick for my slow speed. because that would be about 35 minutes. well, eventually I'll try to get there.

The next time I run the goal is simple: FULL THIRTY MINUTES, non-stop. and dear god people, those last five minutes are hard. really hard. like I want to stop every second hard. I've changed the settings on my app to announce when I have 10 minutes left, 5 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minutes, because really, once I have five minutes left the only thing I can think about is how many more seconds I have to keep running. remarkably, I have still not learned to enjoy running. being on a treadmill sucks, it takes what little fun I had when I ran (seeing a pretty city, enjoying being outside) and puts me about 5 inches away from looking at myself in a mirror while I run. I'm not very pretty while I'm running, but the only thing I have to look at is myself, and how progressively sweaty I get as I go on.

Ok, this was super long. and I know that the goal was a 5k/30 minutes by the end of 2011 but... well, if I can do it by the end of this weekend, that's enough for me. I still have enough to work with on my time!