Rob's 5k story inspired me to go out and buy me some proper running shoes today. Up until now, I've been using these not so awesome cross-trainers that I bought a long time ago. They have served me well enough, but when I decided to come up with some real fitness goals, I knew that they were no longer good enough.
I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, so I stopped at the Life Cafe to grab an enery bar. I know that these often have a lot of calories, but I wanted my run to be a good one. I knew that I wouldn't be able to accomplish this without energy.
My trip to the shoe store cut my workout quite short, so I decided to just go all out from the first little bit. My warmup started at 3.8. At 2 minutes, I bumped it up to 4.5. At 3 minutes, I went to 5.0. No sweat. Literally. I decided to kick it up to 6.0. As a matter of fact, I did not break a real sweat for about 6 minutes at 6.0. Pure craziness. I went an entire mile at 6.0. At the end of the mile, I went down to 4.0 to drink some water and recover a little, because I knew I hadn't even pushed myself really and I wanted to do much better on my next mile. Are you feeling the suspense yet?
I started my mile at 6.5. This was a lot harder after a couple of minutes, but I pushed on. Oh, the side cramps were killing me. I know that I was breathing right (I was in choir and I know all about breathing with the diaphram), so where do these come from and why? Anyways, for the last tenth of the second mile, I just wanted it to be over, so I decided to go faster! 7.0 MPH! I did it, and I loved it! Don't get me wrong...it really hurt, but I am so utterly impressed with myself at this moment. Can you tell? :)
So, is it the new shoes or the energy bar or is it just me and my coolness or a combination of all three? Seriously, I didn't even think that I could go 5.0 until last week.
The body is truly an amazing thing. Require more of it, and it will give that much more.
Next goal is to go 3.1 miles straight at 5.0 mph. This will be a good gauge of where I stand in the endurance category for running a 5k. If I do this well, then maybe the next time I'll increase it to 5.5 mph. Maybe I'll alternate these runs with some interval training? I don't know yet as this is all new to me still.
I'm curious as to what incline you guys are using on the treadmill when you're running. Please post here if you don't mind. I've always used 2% or higher, but I'll admit that I've kept it at 0% in the past week to see how fast I could go without an incline. That obviously makes a difference in my speed, but for perspective...I had a hard time going over 3.3 mph @ 0% incline when I went to the gym for the first time last July. One of the trainers actually approached me and told me I should be using an incline and going faster if I wanted to lose any weight.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
i do two programs on the treadmill because my gym has a 30 minute limit on a single machine. the only way i get to stay on the same machine is if no one is waiting for it behind me. so here is the routine my friend (mike the navy seal/personal trainer/competative body builder/nutritionist gave me to do for the next 3 weeks:
2 mins at 2.5 for warm up at 0 % incline
3 mins at 3.0 at 3% incline
25 mins at 3.2-4.0 at 6% incline
3 minute cool down at 2.5 0% incline.
the second one i do is intervals, which by the way is one of the heart healthiest cardio's to do. its essentially a warm up push and then cool down over and over again. i do 20-30 mins of these at 2 minute intervals, walking at 3.2/4.0. it goes from 0% incline to 6% incline for the intervals. i usually do this after the full on uphill walking.
oh, and walking can burn more calories then running. if you turn up the treadmill to a normal slow jog pace for you but try not to jog, i guess because of the difficulty of walking at such a pace, you actually have to work harder to move that fast.
wow. long comment. oh and yes, i want to join the challenge, how do i?
Angie, thanks for the input.
I am thinking that the reason why more calories are burned is that you're still using aerobic energy - which burns from your existing energy reserves (eventually fat). Anaerobic energy burns more calories later - over an extended period of time. It's highly debated which one is better for weight loss. Just my thought - and I'm sure I don't have all the technical things on that right.
For the FAT Challenge...go to Marcol's blog and post a comment as to which parts you want to participate in. She'll fix ya up.
Whoa, Marcol's a chick??
Ok, girl, you freakin' rock! That was a kick-booty workout!
OK, I created a blog for our team (temporarily called the A-team) so we can communicate:
http://takecontrol-ateam.blogspot.com/
We rule!
Incline?
LOL, yeah right. You're a better person than me :)
Glad to see that the running is contagious though!
Rob, I'm kinda glad to hear about you not using an incline - since you've successfully completed a 5k in great time. I was worried that I'd really slow down in the real running world if I didn't train with the incline.
I will still probably use one, but not during the challenge.
I don't use an incline. For me, I'm just trying to see how far I can run on flat ground...
I've heard that in order to compare to running outside, you should have at least a 2.0 incline on the treadmill. Obviously, Rob has run 5ks and done well, so it's not a hard & fast rule. Just out of curiousity, how do you plan to increase your endurance to the 3.1 miles? But check you out, doing 6.5!!! Is that Kristen, finding herself? Work it!
Rebecca, I had heard that too. That's probably why I've always used 2% or higher.
As far as the 3.1 mile thing goes...I was going to just start at 5.0 mph and go 3.1 miles - to see if I could jog/run it without slowing down. Then increase by .5 mph the next time if I was successful. This has changed though. I'm going to focus on the 1 mile thing for now - and just go balls out every time to increase my overall speed.
I might have to mix up my strategy every time to keep my interest alive though. We'll see. I'd like to hear suggestions.
Does anyone have thoughts on whether or not the new shoes could have made that much of a difference?
Shoes are important (I am a New Balance devotee), but I don't think they would necessarily help your performance, quiet as Nike would like to keep that. But they probably helped you mentally. I mean, unless you have had issues with your shins, or some type of pain or something. But if you stopped short just cuz you were tired, i doubt the shoes really helped. Are they cute? That's what really matters!
Post a Comment