treadmill police

Last night when I went to the gym I was not expecting greatness out of my run. Even though I hadn't run in a few days (or maybe because of it?) some of my joints were a bit achy. I have/had tendinitis in my left ankle so sometimes when it hurts I tend to overcompensate with my right knee. But after I passed the first mile, I started to get into a groove and my body stepped up. I was on track to do the full 2.5 miles I was supposed to do. Then the Treadmill Police came by.

I like to put a towel over my treadmill so I can't see the time or the distance. I find it less stressful that way. Last night, the Treadmill Police came by and asked to see my time. I understand that when it's really busy and there's a line of people waiting to use the treadmills that they ask you limit your time to 30 minutes so I didn't mind that much. Especially since I was only going to be on the treadmill anyway since I was running 2.5 miles, not like I was going to be on there for an hour. When the Policeman came by, I was only at 1.5 miles (I did a 5 minute warm-up walk so I was at 20 minutes total) so I thought "I only have another 10 minutes, no walk breaks! You don't have time!" I was spurred on to do the full 2.5 miles!

Then 5 minutes later, I see him walk back over, check out a few people's times and then stop at my treadmill and say, "You have to stop now." Uhh... what? I still have 5 minutes. When I mentioned this, he responded, "There's a line." Clearly there was no reasoning with this guy. I was bummed because I thought I could do my scheduled 2.5 miles and I only got to do 2 miles (at 6.0 mph with a 1.5 incline the whole time, yeah!), but I understood. If I was on the line, I'd want people to stick to the 30 minutes (even though I didn't get 30 minutes) and I'd want the Treadmill Police to enforce that. So I did a very abbreviated cool-down walk, wiped off my treadmill with the sanitizing towels, and walked over towards the mats to stretch. On my way, I just happened to glance at the treadmill of someone also in my section (and that the Policeman checked on right before me) and noticed that he was over the 30 minute maximum...

Oh hell no! What is that about?! I only got 25 minutes and this guy get's to run for as long as he likes? That's BS. BS, I TELL YOU!

I was going to say something to the Policeman but I didn't want to rat this guy out. I mean, good for him if the Treadmill Police didn't notice or didn't care that he went over the 30 minutes. If I went over the 30 minutes, I wouldn't want some bitter completely justified person tattling on me. However, the Policeman clearly saw that he was over 30 minutes and just didn't care. Ugh. My Wellesley training wanted me to yell out "Sexism!" but I didn't. I don't like confrontation with people I don't know and I don't think it was necessarily sexism. It might have been discriminatory though since I was wearing a blue shirt and both the guy and the Policeman were wearing red shirts...

I'll let you decide.

Cons of NYSC at night: the Treadmill Police
Cons of NYSC during the day: I can't get there because I have a day job

-J

PS: Tonight, we attempt the full 2.5 miles. I may kick it up to 6.5 mph since then I'll either be done sooner so I can do a full cool-down or I'll have run farther if I do get kicked off.
PPS: Alternatively, I may try doing my warm-up on the ellipticals instead of on the treadmill so I get the full 30 mins for running instead of warm-up and running.
PPPS: What am I going to do when I'm supposed to run 4-6 miles on wednesdays closer to the race?!

week 4

I didn't run at all this weekend. Except for the bus. Which I totally made, even though it was a Select Bus Service where you have to get the ticket before you get on. Saturday I had lunch and wandered the Upper East Side with a friend and by the time I got home it was 5pm and freezing from all the snow. Sunday I went to Staten Island for lunch and by the time I got back it was 4pm and I was supposed to be at a football party at 5pm (Pats and Giants won so it should be an exciting Super Bowl!). So now it's Monday and I haven't run in 3 days. I'm going to the gym tonight to get back on schedule. I'm expecting a mediocre performance.

In positive news, from now on my schedule just has the total distance I have to go instead of walk/jog routines. This week I'm supposed to run at least 2.5 miles on Sun, Tues, Wed, Thurs, and Saturday. I'm substituting tonight for Sunday this week (since I already missed Sunday... oops.)

We'll see how it goes.
-J

there was progress... and then not so much.

On Wednesday I went to the gym and got one of my favorite treadmills. I forget the brand or type, but I'll find out next time I go. Also, my knee was hurting me most of the day but then it stopped when I started walking. So already I was set up for success. I was supposed to run 2 miles straight without walking. And I. Did. It. In fact, I actually ran 2.25 miles at 6.0 mph the whole time. I was feeling super good! I did the first mile at 1.0 incline, the second mile at 2.0 incline, and then the last 1/4 mile at 0.0 incline. I've been training the whole time at at least a 1.0 incline and I find that when I run on no incline I get side cramps more quickly. I need to start waiting for treadmills that have negative inclines so I can do some real hills. Right now, I'm all uphill, no downhill!

So yesterday I was pumped to get back on a treadmill and do 1 mile run, 1/4 mile walk, etc. But the second I started running, my ankle started to hurt. I think maybe I overdid it on Wednesday? Or I just took a weird step? It's unclear. I stuck to my plan though (which probably wasn't the best idea) and did 3 miles in 35 minutes. I started out at 1.0 incline. Then after my warm-up walk, I ran one mile at 6 mph. Then I moved it up to a 2.0 incline for a quarter-mile walk and another mile run at 6 mph. Then I did a 1/4 mile walk at 3.0 incline and 1/2 mile walk back at 1.0 incline before cooling down.

Even though my ankle was hurting me, I found a way to run that wasn't as high-impact on my knees/ankles (it's just a less bouncy run, more flat). When I start to get out of breath or feel the asthma a little bit, I start running that way and usually whatever I'm feeling goes away. I probably shouldn't have run as much though because my legs were definitely hurting last night when I got off the treadmill. Today they feel fine though, not even stiff.

Also, I've been running without music and I'm finding it way easier. The buds in my ears were distracting in an annoying way and they always got sweaty and would start to slip out. Also, I didn't like the feel of the cord against my sweaty skin. And it's easier now to wipe the sweat off since I don't have to worry about anything in the way (I'm also wearing contacts now when I run so I don't have to worry about sweaty, slippy glasses either). I always get some funny looks when people see me step on a treadmill without earbuds, but that's okay. The sound from the treadmills easily turns into white noise and I can then think about other things or nothing at all. Last night I just counted seconds (one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three ...) since I should travel 1/10 of a mile in a minute. I was fairly off though. I thought I was counting at the right pace but somehow I got to what I thought was 2 minutes and I had done .25 miles. Not that that's a bad thing. It's better than getting to what I thought was 2 minutes and realizing I ran less than I thought.

Anyway, lunch break over, back to work!
-J

sunday to tuesday

I was supposed to go running on Sunday. But I didn't. It was absolutely freezing outside and, to be honest, I actually didn't leave my apartment at all except to go to dinner one block away. I wish that was a good reason to not run but in reality I was just super tired.

Instead, I did my Sunday run on Monday. I don't quite remember what I did though. I've clearly found a shortcoming with my iphone notes shorthand. I do remember that I did 3 miles in 35:45 and it was all on at least a 1.0 incline. I may need a better record system.

Yesterday, I did a total of 2.4 miles in 25:53 which sets me at under 11 minutes per mile! After my warm-up half mile, I reset the treadmill by accident completely on purpose and did:
0.1-0.1 miles at 6.0 mph and 2.0 incline
0.1-0.5 miles at 6.5 mph and 2.0 incline
0.5-1.0 miles at 6.0 mph and 1.5 incline
1.0-1.25 miles walk 4.0 mph and 1.0 incline
1.25-2.25 miles at 6.0 mph and 1.0 incline
Then I walked until 2.4 miles before I realize I forgot to check and write down the time. Oops.

Clearly, I thought I could handle the steeper incline and higher pace but could not. Probably because the last time I ran more of an incline, it was a weekend and I had gotten enough sleep.

Tonight, I'm supposed to just run 2 miles without walking. My knee hurts a little bit from yesterday though. I think I wasn't placing my feet carefully and started to twist my knee. If it doesn't go away, I'll think about getting a brace for it. A friend told me that when she used to run, a brace really helped her. We shall see. If my knee starts hurting me more during my run, then I won't push myself to the 2 miles, I'll just do crazy hills instead.

Also, I was hoping to go out to Long Island this weekend to run out there (which will be closer to the terrain I'm going to run on during the actual race) and that way I could run with my aunt's dog who may or may not be a good running partner (he's untested, but it'll be easier to test him on shorter distances, obviously) but my roommate is having a pre-birthday event (her birthday is next month) involving going to Staten Island on Sunday. Choices... I think it'll come down to if it rains this weekend or not.

Anyway, off I go to attempt a run. If it doesn't work out, I'll do general strength training. I've been benign-neglecting my arms and back recently and I feel like they may revolt against me if I don't put them in their place soon.
-J

a couple days

On Thursday, I did:
0.5-mile warm-up walk at 4.0 mph
0.75-mile jog at 6.5 mph
0.25-mile walk at 4.0 mph
0.75-mile jog at 6.5 mph
0.25-mile walk at 4.0 mph

That was all at 1.0 incline. After the last walk, I did an extra 1/4 mile walk at 4.0 mph on a 4.0 incline. Really worked those glutes! In total it was 2.8 miles in 33 minutes.

But onto more interesting things:
Today I did my first run without walking. I started with the normal warm-up walk and then I did just over 2 miles (2.1 miles to be exact) at 6.0 mph. No walking!

Even more impressively, I upped the incline a bit during so that mile 1.0-1.2 were at 2.0 incline, 1.2-1.4 were at 3.0 incline, and 1.4-1.6 were back at 2.0 incline. The rest of it was all at 1.0. I was going to just set the treadmill for "hills" but the treadmill I was on today didn't have that feature so I semi-created it myself. I think it was better that I did it since I could stop the hills whenever they got to be too much instead if I was doing the hills program then I would have been stuck.

Even more impressively than that, I didn't listen to music at all. Usually on weeknights the treadmill room is super loud so I've been listening to music to try to drown it out a bit. However, today it wasn't as noisy. I don't know if I'm going to do many more runs without music but it was nice for this time. Usually my mind runs at a mile a minute (I am definitely unable to keep up!) so I like when I find activities that slow it down. I thought I would use the 20 minutes of running to think about things but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could think of much. I was focused on my breathing and placing one foot in front of the other and not much else. Although I did have one line of a song stuck in my head but now I can't remember what it was.


I said I would post a photo of my hair accessories if I remembered to take a photo. Lo and behold, I did:

As you can see, my ponytail is almost as short as a ponytail could possibly be. The front snap clip holds the headband in place (I find that even though the headband has grips, it still slides on my hair and is very distracting when I run or work out) and then the back snap clip holds the hair that isn't long enough for the hair band.

Anyway, it's time for showering and thinking about food options for tonight.

Still jazzed about today's run, hopefully tomorrow's goes equally smoothly!
-J

i don't stick to schedules very well, evidently

Today I did 3.0 miles in 34:05 at an incline of 1.0. I climbed 168 feet. Not bad, not bad. Tonight's running plan was:
0.5-mile warm-up walk at 4.0 mph
0.75-mile jog at 6.0 mph
0.25-mile walk at 4.0 mph
0.75-mile jog at 6.0 mph
cool down

I did that except I added another 0.5 mile jog at the end before I cooled down and I did the second two jogs at 6.5 mph. Recently I've been getting really bad side cramps when I'm running but the other day when I moved up from 6.0 to 6.5 mph for the last half mile of my run, the cramp went away. Today, I got a cramp during my first jog but then it wasn't there throughout my second two. Odd.

I also like the faster pace since I've found that I look at the distance around the same time during every jog section but when I'm running faster, it shows a higher number so I feel better about my situation. Instead of thinking "ugh, I've only run a quarter mile. Half a mile to go." I'm already at the half mile mark so it's more like "Ooo, I've already run over half of this!"

Tomorrow, the plan is the same - jogging 0.75 miles twice with a 0.25-mile walk in between. I did a half mile more today than on the schedule, so if I'm feeling good tomorrow I'll try to do the same.

Also for tomorrow, I'm going to change into my contacts before heading on the treadmill. Sweat + glasses = major distractions! I keep feeling them start to slip down my nose, which is not a particularly enjoyable feeling. I have short hair (above shoulder length) so I already have to put one of those grippy headbands on, then secure it with snap clips, then put as much of my hair as possible into a ponytail and then snap-clip the side bits that don't fit into the hair tie. All so that my hair will not fall and stick onto my sweaty fact/neck/head. Which may be one of the worst feelings ever when I exercise. (If I remember, I'll take a picture and post it. It's really quite an interesting look. But it works.)

Also, my headphones keep slipping out of my ears since I sweat and then they get wet. I'm going to have to get headphones that go around my ears so they stay on. Also, I'm getting a bit grossed out by the idea that I'm sweating on the same headphones that I use all the time. Just thought about that...

Who would have thought running would require so much forethought!
-J

i'm a genius...

...and here's why:

1. I cannot do math: I thought I could. I mean, I minored in it. I have a computer and phone that have calculators. I have an actual calculator. No excuse. The past few (I don't even know how many) times I've gone running and then posted here my distances/times, I tried to not include a 0.5 mile warm-up at 4.0 mph. However, when I subtracted the 0.5 miles from the overall time, I somehow thought that corresponded to 5 minutes off the clock. Sigh. Yeah, I know. So please ignore my previous times. It's probably better if you ignore the distances, too. From now on, I'm going to include my 0.5 mile warm-up walk in my distances and times since I clearly cannot be trusted to do basic rate*time=distance calculations.

Time out for a learning moment: you should always do some sort of warm-up before starting to run. It will help your legs stretch out before you pick up the pace. This guy hopped on the treadmill today a few down from me and just started going for it. It looked impressive until 10 minutes later when he stopped his treadmill all of a sudden and was kneading his calf muscle. Cramp. That sucks. Similarly, you should preferably do a cool-down walk. Today, I only did a 2 minute cool-down since there were a ton of people on line for the treadmill, but usually I try to do 5 minutes and slowly decrease the speed and incline.

2. I cannot read a running schedule: On Sunday, I was supposed to only jog 0.5 miles 3 times (with walks in between). I did it 7 times. No wonder I was dying at the end! I realized this today when I finally read my training plan for the first time since I made it over a week ago (since then I've just been glancing at the distances really quickly before heading to the gym).

So today, the schedule said to run 0.75 miles twice with a 0.25 mile walk in between. I sort of stuck to it but sort of didn't. I did only run twice, but the first time I did more like 0.80 miles at 6.0 mph (no biggie, I had good music playing) and so walked 0.20 miles at 4.0 mph and then I noticed that there was a huge line for the treadmills and the Treadmill Police were making sure people stuck to the 30 minute limits, so I just ran for as long as I could the second time until I hit 30 minutes. Which means that I ran 1 mile to end it. I think about 0.5 was at the 6.0 mph and then the other 0.5 was somewhere between 6.3 and 6.5 mph. It felt really good to run faster since even 6.0 mph feels like I'm not quite running. In total, I did 2.55 miles in 29 minutes at an incline of 1.0.

3. I built an Ikea table and chairs last night: Why does this make me a genius? Well it was a lot of time spent on my knees (that's what she said.) and by the time I was done with one chair and 20% of the table, my knees were hurting from pressing against the ground. I was even in a room with a really puffy carpet. So today my knees were hurting a bit at work and then they didn't feel 100% at the gym. Ooo, but that gives me a reason why I'm an actual genius: I didn't over strain myself running, which would have made my knees even worse. Hopefully tomorrow they'll be all better.

Anyway, I have to go to bed. I had to be in at work at 7:30am this morning which is usually around the time that I'm awake and getting out of bed. Not cool, job, not cool.

Hope everyone is having an acceptable first-full-week-back-at-work-since-the-new-year!
-J