It's been a long time, baby...

I honestly can't recall the last time I ran on the treadmill.  We don't have one at home, so I joined a gym last winter.  Ohio winters can be brutal, and when the roads aren't plowed, or it is dark before 6 PM, running outside just didn't happen.  I have a love-hate relationship with the treadmill.  Tonight, for example, was a love night.  With the heat index still over 90 at 7 PM, and the dew point hovering around 72, I knew I was going to have trouble doing my planned workout.  Tonight's run called for intervals.  I actually love interval training. I did most of my speedwork in preparation for my first half in the form of intervals on the treadmill.  I haven't done them lately, though, as I have been doing repeats on the track.  Basically, they are the same thing... with intervals, you focus on running at a certain (fast) speed for a certain amount of time.  With repeats, the focus is on the distance, and hitting a specific pace.  

The TLAM: Own It plan started with a relatively easy speed workout.  No surprise, as it's the first week of the program.  I've been doing weekly speed workouts this summer, so I felt prepared for this one.  10 minutes warm-up, followed by once through this ladder: 1 min/2 min/3 min/2 min/1 min.  Those intervals were to be run at Z4-Z5, which basically means between 90-95% effort.  Between each repeat was 2 minutes of recovery running.  The run ends with a 10 minute cool-down.

I wasn't really sure what 90-95% effort was for me.  The last time I did 400 repeats, I went between 1:45-1:50 for each repeat.  That's about a 7:00-7:20 per mile pace.  7:00/mile is 8.5 miles per hour (thanks to this site for helping me with conversions LOL!).  So after my 10 minutes of warm-up, I set the treadmill at 8.5 mph for my first minute... and almost fell off the back!  It was seriously scary trying to run that fast on the treadmill, even though I can do it on the track.  I just didn't feel safe.  So I took it down to 8.3 mph.  A bit better.  I did 8.0 mph for the 2/3/2 intevals, and then 8.2 for the final minute interval.  8.0 mph is definitely closer to 90% than 95% for me, but I felt safer with the treadmill set on that.  I ran my 2 minute recovery runs at 6 mph (10:00/mile).  I wasn't sure what the speed was supposed to be for those, as the plan didn't specify.  I did run an extra 50 seconds on the 10 minute cool-down  (which began at 6.0 mph and got a bit slower as it went on), so that I could hit 4 miles for the night.

Because I am not going to be able to hit the gym tomorrow night for weights (which is what I have been doing), I finished up with some sets using the dumbbells.  3 x 10 of standing flies, dumbbell curls, dumbbell press, tricep extensions, and lat pulldowns.  My arms were sore, mainly because during the twins' naptime today I did a total of 245 push-ups!  Yep, I finally did week 6, day 3 of the push-up challenge.  The 245 push-ups was broken into 9 sets; the first 8 were between 18-30 push-ups each, and the ninth set was 56 (OUCH!).  Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  On Sunday I will do the final test set for the challenge.  I would be totally shocked if I got to 100.  So here are my goals (I am a big goal setter, in case you haven't figured that out!):

• Ultimate goal: 100 push-ups (that's why I did the challenge, right?)
• Really happy with it goal: 85-99 push-ups
• Proud of myself goal: 71-85 push-ups
• Minimum goal: 70 push-ups

To refresh your memories, I did 21 for the initial test (that was just about 1 month ago).  My second test set was 48 push-ups, and my third was 60 push-ups.  So, we'll see what Sunday brings!  

Before Sunday, I've got cross-training tomorrow (core focus during the twins' naptime), and a long run of 8 miles(!) on Saturday.  That will be my longest run since my first half by almost 2 miles.  Yikes!  I am excited though.  The goal = keep it comfortable.  I tend to push myself on my long runs.  I am really going to try to find a comfortable pace and try to enjoy the run.  It's supposed to be a *bit* cooler on Saturday, so I am hoping for a nice run.