My Weight Loss Blog

Perhaps emboldened by my public workouts this week, yesterday I took my cardio program off the treadmill and took to the lake path near our house.  I’ve walked it before and there are quarter mile markers which make it good for running, and the hills aren’t too bad.  It’s about 2.25 miles.  Unfortunately there turned out to be a couple of markers missing, which made it a bit of a challenge since I was trying to do quarter mile intervals.

I started out at the first mile marker and just started running.  In hindsight I should have started by walking the first quarter mile but I was determined to jog so jog I did.  I did the first quarter mile in 2:20, which is a pace of almost 6.5mph - a little over a 9 minute mile.  I just had my analog watch so times are approximate, need to remember to bring my stopwatch next time or get a decent sport watch.  I have to say I was really sucking wind after that quarter mile run, which makes sense since I am still in my fourth week of week one of my cardio program.  Yeah, fourth week of week one - I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader to figure out.

Since my jogging pace on the treadmill is 5mph this was a significantly faster pace than I am used to and my lungs, heart and legs felt it.  After walking for a quarter mile I was ready to give it another go and I clocked the next quarter mile in at 2:40, which is about 5.6mph - so still ahead of treadmill pace.  Major wind sucking, heart pumping again.  Then I walked.

I clocked a 3:00 in my 3rd quarter mile, and this was after what turned out to be a half mile walk because there was a quarter mile marker missing.  So I had plenty of rest, but I was still slowing down, now at 5mph, which is what I think I’ve been running at home.

I ran my final quarter at 3:00 as well, although I can’t be sure since I didn’t see any markers but knew one needed to be near and when I didn’t see it I just stopped running.  From start to finish it took me 37 minutes for an average pace of 3.62mph, which is only slightly faster than my overall treadmill pace.  This would mean I must have been walking slower than the walking pace I keep on the treadmill, since my running pace was faster and I was running more.

These results were both frustrating and heartening depending on how I choose to look at it.  Frustrating because I remember when I used to be able to make that run without stopping and now I feel like a big lumbering ogre.  Heartening because I have already seen great progress on my program and I was able to do a stretch run of quarter mile intervals, which is way beyond week one performance.  Plus I went out in public again.

I’m choosing the latter - it was a great day!

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