I Ran Outside - and I Liked It!!!

Almost all of my training is done on a treadmill. There are several reasons for this, no dogs chasing me, perfect weather conditions, I travel a lot and almost every hotel has a treadmill, I can watch Judge Judy, and most important, no hills! (I HATE hills) However, on Saturday, my schedule was such that I had to leave for work before the gym opened (they have shortened weekend hours) and I wouldn't be back in time to get in my run at the gym. Since I already had taken a day off for the week, that left me with one option.....run outside. I ran in the pre-dawn hours, a 1.1 mile loop around my neighborhood. The good news is, none of my neighbors let their dogs run loose, also, I didn't mind the hills as much as I did last year. I guess I'm just getting stronger.

My training for the week:

Note: all treadmill run mileages and times include a 5 minute walking warmup and 5 minute walking cooldown.

Monday - 4.94 miles on treadmill in 58 minutes
40 minutes of weight training

Tuesday - 9.15 miles on treadmill in 1:46

Wednesday - 5 miles on treadmill in 58 minutes

Thursday - 9.12 miles on treadmill in 1:46

Friday - Off day

Saturday - 4.41 miles in 48 minutes. Run around neighborhood, I'm calling this a hill workout!

Sunday - 12.37 miles on treadmill in 2:34

For some reason, I had a really tough time with my long run this week. Even though I was running 0.2 mph slower than on my medium run days, my heartrate was about 10 bpm faster. I even had to slow down to a 1 minute walk about 4 or 5 times the last hour of my run. My guess is that my body was low on carbs since I'm also trying to lose some weight. Next week I'll try adding a few more carbs the day before my long run. Not necessarily carb loading, but more like not restricting carbs.

Next weeks training plan:

I'm planning on adding 2, 4, and 6 minutes to my short, medium and long runs. The plan is to continue to do this until I get to 1 hour, 2 hour, and 3 hour runs. Then continue to add to my long run until I run one 20 mile run a couple of weeks before my first marathon.