Monday, April 13, 2009

Smarter use of the treadmill

I am lucky that I work just a couple of minutes away from a very reasonably priced gym ($10/month). So when I am in the office, I take advantage of that during lunch times.

Prior to Umstead, I mainly used the treadmill for just running – it was good cardio, and helped the running muscles, and it was good to just log miles. Every now and then, I would do speed work, and some hill work, but that was it.

As part of my campaign to improve my walking. I put the treadmill at an incline of 15, and walked for the whole 33 minute workout, gradually increasing speed from 4 mph to 5 mph. I am planning to do this workout once or twice per week, and track the mileage, so I can try to beat my own record. That was a tough walk, and I really felt like I had a workout, but hopefully it will help me in upcoming races - I now know that there is always going to be plenty of walking involved.

I always do 33 minutes on the treadmill for a couple of reasons - 1) with a 2 minute warm-up, a 2 minute cool down, shower and getting changed is just about the length of a lunch break I can get away with, and 2) When I first became a member of this gym (a little less than 4 years ago), 33 minutes was my dream time for a 5k run........ (my current personal best these days in 33 minutes is 4.5 miles - that's treadmill miles though, which as everyone knows are way shorter than real miles, but it does indicate how far I have come in that time).

The geek in me forces me to make note of the fact that in the 33 minutes, I did 2.36 miles. A new record (yeah, I know it was my first time, but I can claim it, because I'm in charge of my own personal record book.)

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