Wednesday 5 January 2011

Learning to love the dreadmill

Didn't manage to get out for a run at a reasonable time today so instead I went to the gym in the evening to pound the treadmill for a while. I'm having a disorganised day and I didn't realise till I got there that I'd forgotten my Garmin. You might think a Garmin would be unnecessary for running on the treadmill, what with being indoors and all, and you would be right, but I like to use a footpod when treadmilling and it's interesting to see how the distance measured by the footpod compares with the distance measured by the treadmill (they're not identical). However I am not a sad person who cannot run without a Garmin attached to my wrist, no no, definitely not, and I didn't even consider going home to get it... well, only briefly.

Actually I really enjoyed my run on the treadmill and I didn't even look longingly at my left wrist very often. When I got there the gym was pretty quiet (I don't know where all those January people are, maybe they have already given up?) and only one of the 6 treadmills was in use. It was occupied by a big beefy guy in a singlet who was (and I swear this is true) running while leaning forward and literally hugging the front of the treadmill. I mean literally. His arms were around the front of it and his legs were running. Maybe this is some new treadmill technique in which I am as yet unversed, but it looked very odd. He carried on like this for about two minutes, walked for about 10 seconds, then scooted off out of the room. Maybe he thought I was giving him funny looks, or admiring his singlet, or something. Then another bloke came in and ran for five minutes while holding on to the side rails. I don't know what the experts have to say about this but it doesn't look right to me. It's not as if you have side rails when you're out running in the great outdoors, after all.

Anyway apart from these small diversions I was alone in the gym and I did some (not very fast) quarter-mile intervals for 35 minutes, and covered 3.53 miles by which you may deduce that my intervals were indeed not very fast, but that did include a warm up and cool down, and rather to my surprise I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Then I did a little (and I mean a little) on the weights machines, which I really don't use enough because I'm not very good at them. My legs are reasonably strong from all the running but my upper body is pretty feeble. I know that's a reason to do more strength training rather than less, and I do plan to start doing more.

Garmin-less stats:

Time: 35:00
Distance: 3.53 miles
Average pace: 9:55
Total Janathon distance so far: 20.34 miles

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