Outta Gas

I went to the gym after karate yesterday to run.  I wussed out on running outside here in the morning because I didn’t want to run in the cold again, it seems so cruel after having run in some really nice temperatures for the last couple of weeks.

I did karate first and lead a fairly mild warm up, push-ups, crunchies, some frog jumps and some burpees.  My legs were used, but definitely not tired.  I got to the gym and hopped on the treadmill and set it to 9mph.  The idea here was that a steady pace of 9mph gets a mile done in 6:40. 5K is 3.14 miles, and so with a sprint near the finish I might be able to eek out a time right around or maybe even less than twenty minutes.

Now usually the last few times I have done my run on the ‘mill I have run the majority of the distance at about 8.7 or 8.8mph or so and bumping it up yesterday seemed to make for pretty hard running.  I would not have thought there would be much difference.  Maybe there should not have been.

Maybe a couple of the running people can help me out here.  Because where I think it went south actually started the day before.  Friday I had greasy Pizza Hut pizza for lunch and then a fried calamari appetizer (and fish and pasta) for dinner, and then I played goalie from 9-10pm, and then only seven hours sleep.  Actually listing it all off like that and I am no longer surprised what happened on the treadmill.

To run 5K is 12.5 laps on the distance thingy on the treadmills we have at the gym (400 metres x 12.5 laps = 5K) and at the end of lap 10 I just could not keep up the pace anymore and had to drop it a bit for lap 11, and then a couple .1’s more of lap 12.  I did finish by sprinting, but yesterday at least going that speed for that long took it’s toll and I just could not keep my legs moving that fast.  I had visions of Adam Savage on the treadmill a couple of times.

It might be wrong to laugh at the injuries of others, but this is still hilarious!

I did end up finishing the 5K in 21:16 just off my best time so far, so it was not all that bad of a run.  But I think a slightly lower pace for the beginning and then a slightly long, slightly higher speed sprint at the end might be the way to go to get this time down to twenty minutes.