Well, it's not really gear, but it did save me from myself and my apalling laziness.Unlike Nytro, I don't hate running but I do still suffer the vestiges of a former life of sloth. It's pretty difficult to get my butt out from between the lovely flannel sheets that Sweet Baboo put on the bed yesterday.
Mmmmm. Flannel.
Anyway, this morning I got up and it was 34 degrees out. And, it was dark as pitch.
A warm, flannel-sheeted bed is much nicer than a dark, windy cold morning. And, as I am the Queen of She Who Would Rather Be in Bed on any given day, this was not good.
Not good at all.
Dark? I'll do it!
Cold? I'll do it!
Dark and cold? No way. Turn the light off, go away, and leave me alone. Oh, and have a nice run.
Normally I would just sit in bed and perseverate on how dark and/or cold it is outside, and promise myself that I will do my workout AFTER work (yeah, right.)
OR I would do my very favorite procrastination activity: pfutzing around, looking productive while I searched for this or that piece of equipment that I must have before I can start running, until, lo and behold! it's just too late to go running, and well, gosh, now I have to shower and get ready for work...
But not today. I have to get ready and training for that marathon on January. My visit to the medical tent at the Redman is still fresh in my mind, and I don't want a repeat of that in any other venue. Ever.So, after staring out at the black, cold morning I finally decided I had to something, anything, or Rock-n-Roll Arizona is going to KICK MY ASS.
About a month ago Sweet Baboo picked up these Run-e-rvals DVD's at High Desert Bikes. They had ordered them by mistake and gave him a pretty good deal. We've tried the Spin-e-rvals DVD's before and like them.
I hit the treadmill and put in the first one, "Easy Intervals". It was 35 minutes long, and it was a hell of a workout. First, you start out at a brisk walk, and then raise your speed to YOUR base running pace. It takes you throught several intervals in which you work your way up 3 mph over your base pace. The next set take you up to 3% incline while running your base pace. Finally, the last set takes you up to 3 mph over your base pace AND 3% over your regular grade.
As you can probably figure, you can continue to use this even as you progress, because you start out at YOUR base pace and incline, and then take it to intervals over that. Between each interval, you run back at your base pace again.
In the end, I was dripping sweat on the treadmill, breathing heavily, both windows were open and the fans were a-blowin'. Sweet Baboo, who normally likes his room temp around 50 deg. F, started shutting windows.
But I felt great! Since it was only 35 minutes long, I went ahead and continued after it was over and ran at just over my base pace for another couple miles before climbing down and getting ready for work.
Hey, if you've got a treadmill and aDVD player, get this DVD. It's awesome. I'm not so disciplined that I can do intervals on my own without coaching, anc coach Troy is pretty cool. Maybe these will speed me up a bit, too, so that I can be "tales from the middle of the pack".
Pretty soon I'll try the other one we have, "Up, up, up! the Hill climber!" It's 55 minutes, so it's going to be a hell of a workout.
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