I ran an easy 30 minutes on my treadmill last night. And it was tough! I had my heart rate monitor on, and wanted to stay below 150 bpm. I started out slow, and increased the speed in small increments for a warm up. But as I got up to maybe 5.5 mph, my heart rate was already starting to pop above 150. I began slowing the treadmill. I took short walk breaks. Eventually I had the treadmill down to 4.3mph just to keep my heart below 150. That is not much faster than a brisk walk. The walk breaks I took doing 4mph, and my heart rate would drop down into the 130’s.
I have few theories. One is that I am still not recovered from running the Las Vegas Marathon on 12/10. Another is that with all the training I did for the marathon, some of it bordering on anaerobic, my aerobic fitness went to hell. And another is that following the marathon, my running has been sporadic as I am recovering, and this has affected my aerobic speed. And another is the cold I am currently fighting. Chances are, it is a combination of all of these. I know before the marathon, I was able to go much faster, for longer periods of time while keeping my heart rate down. It will come back!
Coming off the Las Vegas Marathon on December 10th, which was my longest run ever, I am looking at trying a 50k this Sunday. It is called the Every Tom, Rick And Barry Can Do It Fat Ass 50k. I have been looking at it for a while. My running since the marathon has been off and on. I ran a little over 8 mile last weekend. This week I was planning to taper. I skipped my scheduled Tuesday run, and planned on running last night. But things got hectic, and I didn’t run last night. I am going to try to run an easy 30 minutes tonight. Then I have been getting over a cold, and seem to have another cold coming on, or the same cold coming back. I woke up this morning all stuffed up, and hacking up flem.
The Fat Ass 50k, is 4 loops around a local park. So if worse comes to worse, I can drop out between loops at about 8, 16, or 24 miles. But I figure that if I can’t run, I can at least walk the remain miles. I am going to try to pace myself by my heart rate monitor, and keep my heart rate under 150. Then if I am feeling good later in the run, I will pick up the pace some.
Since I am following Jeff Galloway’s 4:00 hour marathon plan. I was scheduled for hill training. Normally I walk up the hills, and run the downhills and flats. But his book say that for hill training, I should run up the hills (not sprint), and walk the down hills. I was also scheduled to run 8 to 9 miles. Since I live in a hilly area, I went out and ran a 8.25 mile route with lots of hills. I also took my dog with me on a leash. I have never taken her with me running before, and that alone was an experience. She pulled me the first part, and I pulled her the rest of the way. Anyway, I ran up the hills, and walked down the hills, and ran the flats. I still tried to mixed in a few walk breaks. Wow, that was a heck of a work out! But around mile 6, I started to get worried about my dog. She seemed pretty tired, and I thought the 8 mile run might be too much for her. So I walked more on the last couple miles. When I got home, I expected she would plop down, and sleep a lot of the rest of the day like she has down after occasional long hikes. But she actually seem not to be too tired. When I got home, I was reading through Galloway’s book and found that he was talking about a single hill 200-800 meters long. Oh well. I still ran a bunch of hills.
While training for the Las Vegas Marathon, I used the Hal Higdon Intermediate 1 schedule. I didn’t follow it exactly. I skipped many of the Saturday runs, especially in the later training. Since it was my first marathon, and I was a Running Elvis, I wasn’t too concerned about time. My main goals were to finish, and to have fun, hopefully in not too bad of a time. Well, I have been there, and done that. Now I want to improve my marathon time. Since I found the running/walking thing of Jeff Galloway worked for me, I am looking at using one of his schedules. He has a schedule for a 4:00 hour marathon. Right now I am looking at running the Buffalo Marathon on May 27th. Looking at the schedule, I can jump in at week 4. Unlike the Higdon schedule, the Galloway schedule doesn’t have Saturday runs. And since it has runs on Wednesdays and Fridays, these days fit well into my daily schedule. I still have to work in the Tuesday runs into my schedule.
Now one, of the questions is can I run that fast? I can run at a 9:00 pace. Can I run at 9:00 pace for 40-50 minutes as the schedule has me doing? Well, I can give it a try. I have my treadmill fixed now. I am scheduled for a 40-50 minute run today. I think I am mostly recovered from the Las Vegas Marathon from 12/10 at this point. I am now also recovering from a cold. Well, I’ll give it a shot and see what happens.
I picked up the running platform from the welder yesterday. They had welded the broken part of the steel frame, and reinforced the other side so it shouldn’t break the same way.
When I got home, I started to reassemble it. The reassembly process was a reall pain, because I am sure I was doing it in a different order than how it is done in the factory. I really had to pull and pry parts in order to get bolt holes lined up. And then it was a pain to get the bolts into the holes as other parts would be in the way. One lock nut slipped and fell down into the part of the frame attached to the motor. I tilted the whole treadmill, this way and that, but couldn’t get it to come out. I couldn’t even hear it moving around. I ended up going to Home Depot and buying a couple more lock nuts. Once I had the treadmill mostly put together, I had to readjust the roller on the top side, as well as the roll on the bottom side. I adjusted the rollers until the belt seemed to be rolling relatively straight and centered. Then I replaced the cover. I wasn’t scheduled to run last night, but am scheduled to run tonight. I may give it a shot.
I think part of what contributed to the frame breaking is that I tend to run at the front end of the platform. So my weight bouncing up and down would place a lot of stress on the brackets that allow the unit to incline. Maybe I will try to run more to the middle of the belt.