Week 3

Tuesday

It was -3 degrees and the payment outside my house was slippery so I cancelled my run at the club and went to the gym.  I knew that running 5 miles on a treadmill would not be funny but nothing prepared me to how tough it was going to be.  I set the computer on rolling hills and level 6 as that is what I’ve been using for walking and then I set the speed to 6 too.  It soon became clear that speed 6 was way too fast for a 9% elevation, so I was forced to knock it down to 4.5. After two miles I couldn’t cope with the hills anymore and switched to manual and an elevation of 3%.  By this time I was panting like a dog and embarrassed that the guy on the treadmill next to me would hear me but fortunately he had his earphones on too.  The remaining time I gradually brought the elevation down whilst increasing the speed as towards the end of the session I was getting a new worry.  It appeared that I couldn’t increase the running time of the session; it was set on a maximum of 60 minutes.  Due to the much slower pace at the beginning, I was running out of time to complete all my required 5 miles.  The only thing I could do was to increase the speed and I just managed to complete by including the cool down period as well.  However, the next day my surgery I had pain in my surgery area, which is a sign that I had been over-doing it.

Thursday

After the problems I had on Tuesday; I had decided that I had to go to the club tonight even if it was slippery. Luckily, although it was still -1.5, it was white ice, which is not slippery at all.  We decided to use the Bucknall Hospital route for our 4 mile run and we really enjoyed it.  It seemed excruciatingly cold to start with but we soon warmed up and then it was perfect for running.  It was a calm, cool night which made us feel really fresh; the pace was right and I barely even noticed the little hill that worried me.

Saturday

It was raining first thing in the morning and I was disappointed that it would spoil my favourite run of the week but by the time I went to the park; it had stopped and left us with perfect running conditions.  Kath is still concerned about letting me run at full speed but she has agreed to gradually increase it whilst the ground is allowing and today we run around 2 minutes faster than a fortnight ago at 31.36. 

Sunday

I plotted out a reasonably flat, 6 mile run but with one category 5 hill after the 1^st mile.  It went from Festival Park along Etruria Rd to Marsh St and up Union St.  We then ran along Town Rd and Keelings Rd to Leek Road and the railway station. The last couple of miles came from running along Shelton New Road and Etruria Vale Rd back to Festival Park. The weather was really good to us.  It was 7 degrees and the sun came out which made it a very pleasant run indeed.