"Hills"

After sleeping in yesterday, I knew I needed a run this morning. However, the kids both ended up in bed with me by 3:30 this morning. Hubby was sleeping on the couch (and no, he wasn't in trouble) because he's got a cold, so I didn't mind. At least it wasn't too crowded. However, it took me until 4:15 or so to get back to sleep...and that darn alarm clock went off at 4:50 as planned. I hit the off button...sat there...and finally climbed out of bed. I hit the treadmill for a "hill" workout...or at least an attempt.

I warmed up for a few minutes (which is really when I wake up, get a drink and get the iPod situated). Then I rotated 3 minutes on an incline with 2 minutes at 0% through a 2%, 4%, 6% and back to 4% before finishing up. I should have gone longer. But I did it.

My only problem right now is I'm having some pain in my shin/calves. Most of the pain is on the inside top of my shin, to the inside of the bone before the actual "calf" muscle starts. I'm a little worried about it because I can't identify the source. It even hurt when I kneeled down in my son's floor to pick up a jillion cars. It hurt at the beginning of the run but seemed to handle the "hills" ok, but then they hurt again at the end with the calf tightening up pretty quickly.

With my 10K a little over a week away, I'm getting nervous. I'm just not sure I've done enough. I never did get that core training habit down. And I know my abs need to be stronger. Seriously stronger.

I have decided to walk the 18 miles on Saturday and see how I feel. If I'm up for it, I'll run a long run Sunday morning and then run Tuesday/Thursday before the race. If I can't run Sunday, I'll run Monday/Tuesday/Thursday before the race. Can't believe it's this close!

Intervals, ugh

I figured out a way to do my intervals without losing momentum...the treadmill. Yes, it's that dreaded contraption in the steamy garage, but it worked better than my own motivation on the road...at least for this particular day. I just set the treadmill to one of its preset workouts. Why I didn't think of that earlier, I have no idea. Just like I didn't think to use those workouts and the incline on regular workouts to simulate the road a little more. Duh. Well, you'd think, huh?

But, yesterday, I finally thought of it and set it to one in the "weight loss" category, mainly because I didn't have time to go through all of them to figure it all out at 5 a.m.

I set it to one with a max speed of 7.7 and max incline of 2.0. Wow. I normally do my easy runs at 5.5, maybe a 6 if I'm feeling tough. But I found the more I did the 7.7, the happier I was at 7.0. Crazy. In a good way. I may up tomorrow's speed on my regular run to see if I'm still comfortable there.

But, I realized after the fact, I was supposed to run hills this week. I don't know if that's possible on the treadmill, but I'm going to find out next week. I'm sure I'd be happier outdoors, but I just can't run in the dark that early, and it's still too hot after school.

Still, it was a good workout. I was pouring sweat...literally. And I had a second fan in there, albeit a small one. I'm looking at getting a big one to mount on the wall. Not that it would help. I did cut the workout a little short by about one interval. I guess I'm going to have to resort to getting up at 4:45. That was always my rule...no getting up when a 4 starts the time. But it's one of those rules I may have to break in order to get it all done.

Tomorrow is an easy run, 3 miles if I have enough time. I'm looking forward to my weekend long run outside, but even that may get shuffled around. My 3-Day team is walking 12 miles Saturday morning and I hate missing out on the team walk.