"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start,
anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." ~ Anonymous

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Preparing for 5K

A little background first....
The treadmills at the gym on the base only allow you to use them for 30 minutes at a time. They will actually shut down into cool down mode after 30 minutes. You can reset the treadmill, but you have to stop it to do so, or you have to keep pushing a button for a few more minutes and up the speed each minute. Hmm... this makes it hard for yours truly to run 5K on the treadmill, because I have to keep pushing the button to extend time for about 15 minutes to reach 5k. :)

So, on nicer days I'll go run at the park (maybe) for distance, but mostly I needed to figure out how to "train" on the treadmill. I decided to work on my pace and do intervals of fast pace/slower (comfy) pace.

Today I added the "hills" setting so that it would automatically put the incline up and down every couple of minutes. I did this for a solid 30 minutes at 4.3 mph, which is the fastest speed I've stayed at for that length of time.

It was hard towards the end, but I didn't let myself lower the speed. I felt like I got a good, hard cardio workout in. I think adding incline to my runs will help prepare me for running outside more, and my 5K run coming up in a couple of weeks. :)

4 comments:

  1. You are going to do awesome! Way to go on your running :-)

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  2. Good job finding alternatives. What a frustrating treadmill.

    Happy St. Patrick's Day

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  3. That is a great workout, and it should really prep you for the 5K. You go, Girl, yes you do!

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  4. Sounds like you are doing all the right things to be prepared for your 5k! My daughter was going to have me focus once a week on Fartlets too (Until this head cold slowd me down). I'm hoping by next week I haven't lost much of were I was at in my running.
    I'm so excited for your first 5k coming up...it's giving me motivation that I can do it too:)

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