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The Precipice Of The Backslide

One of the worst and toughest workouts last night and I even decreased the intended difficulty. I knew things were going to be tough in the first 90 seconds of running. My legs felt like I had already been running for 10 minutes. I gutted out the normal routine for the first 10 minutes but after that I had to modify my walking to be extra slow (2 mph) just to recoup something for the runs. I did as planned and slowed my runs down for the last 4 segments which I'm sure helped but I didn't feel it. Of course because of all the extra slowness my mileage was the lowest it's been since last week, down to 1.56 miles. I have a planned rest/mow the lawn day today, then Friday and Saturday I should be on mornings. I think I am going to go backwards to the 15 minute running routine, as I blame all the trouble lately on my trying to increase my running time when I wasn't ready. I got so excited that day I ran 16 minutes and I didn't want to go backwards then so I upped myself to 18 minutes and it's been all trouble since. Anyway the 15 minute routine calls for 90 seconds walking and 90 seconds running, which sounds like cake compared to 60 seconds I've been walking. With this routine I think I may be able to incorporate some odd 2 minute run segments in here and there so that I slowly progress to 18 rather just jumping up again.

A Reprieve At The End

Another 18 minutes of running last night. It really kicked my butt, in a good way though. So far I have been adamant about sticking to my running speed on the treadmill because I didn't want to sacrifice my mileage. Anyway somewhere around the 20:00 mark I felt like it was getting easier to run. Then I looked down at the display and realized that I had been running at 3.5 mph instead of 3.7 mph. I changed it and gutted out the rest of the workout expecting my mileage to really be off at the end. I was surprised though to find that I finished with 1.644 miles only 3 thousandths off yesterday. So I did some thinking and some math and I came up with a new idea. From now on for my last 4 runs, which amounts to about 6 minutes, I am going to run at the slower pace. My logic is that if I were running outside there would be no way I would keep up the 3.7 mph pace when I'm so drained. I don't think I need to retreat my whole workout to the slower speed because my body doesn't get bad until the 20:00 range. Also the past couple runs I have had a slight chafing issue on my inner thighs so I think I'm going to start using my compression shorts that I bought a couple weeks ago.