Well that was an interesting couple of days and taxing on the old bod, but I got through it and today was the workout that I actually look forward to – Speed work. Yeah, I am one of those guys.

At least now that I have learned that I don’t have to run stoopid speeds to do these workouts. I just have to run controlled paces that are based on reality versus “how I used to be” or wishful thinking.

A pretty big difference to say the least.

Yeah, I ran yesterday 6.0 easy miles on the treadmill, the temps were below zero and the wind chills were nothing I wanted to deal will. Today the temps were still in the single digits and the wind chills were not all that great. So another treadmill day, but since I have committed to do my speed work inside for a while it was not a big deal.

Running my speedwork inside does make sure that I maintain a consistent pace throughout the fast interval (keep things honest versus that go faster at the end to hit the right time) and also it keeps the rest intervals where they are supposed to be until I start the next fast interval. Although it doesn’t get the pace ingrained as much as running outside does, it gives me a pretty good idea of where I need to be.

Today is week three of the Hansons Marathon plan, so I got to do 6 x half mile repeats (close enough to 800s for my purposes), with quarter miles rests. I did them at same pace as last week 7:13 and felt strong, even though I have done way too much snowblowing lately. 😉

Like last week after finishing the plan’s half mile repeats, I was still feeling really good, I decided to do 5 x .1 strides with .1 rests. I did them at a pretty quick pace and felt really good. When I finished the strides I was 6.5 miles into the run and finished that half mile off at rest pace to treadmill shut-off at one hour. Then I started it back up and did 2.0 more miles at an easy pace.

A really good run.

The Experiment

One thing that I did differently is that I used Mary’s Fitbit Blaze, while she tried out my FR35, she isn’t all that happy with the Fitbit and I offered mine up. So last night I did a bunch of stuff to switch things around and figured out that the only thing that either watch would connect to was my iPhone, not my iPad Pro or an old Samsung Android phone.

That was the problem she was having with connectivity, we had setup it up so that we “thought” it was connected to my iPad Pro when in fact it was not. So whenever I would turn off my phone and start it back up her Fitbit app was shut down and would not sync. Sometimes it is the simplest things that mess things up, but I would love to figure out why I can’t connect either my FR35 or her FitBit Blaze to my iPad Pro and have to use my iPhone 7 or a hard data transfer on her PC?

Either way, now at least I know the answer to the problem and when she isn’t syncing I can go in and turn on the FitBit app on my phone for her.

She wasn’t crazy about the FR35 and while the heart rate monitor and treadmill tracking are better on the Blaze, it is not really a good runner’s watch OR site to review my running data, in my opinion. While the FR35 is not that great for running inside and the heart-rate monitor is questionable at best while actually running, it serves my purposes better than the Blaze would for now. If I want to get better heart-rate readings while running I will need to get a chest strap at some point.

However, it is not a high priority thing, since I have stopped running by heart-rate and returned to primarily running by pace, unless it is an easy outside run.

The other thing is that the more longer runs that I do in the Adios 3s, the more my feet bother, so while I love the fit and feel, I have a feeling that for me at this point in my running life, they are a 5K or 10K to 10 mile – max distance race day shoe. So I will use either the Tempo 9s or Beacons next week for my longer speed work to see how they do for that.

I am not fast enough that I really need to worry about a little extra weight for a half marathon or longer race and need to focus on comfortable and adequate light-weight protection.

Also when the mouse chewed on the uppers last fall, they are starting to come apart in a couple of places, which sucks because I love the AB3s and really don’t want to replace them. I am trying to be really good about not buying shoes just to buy shoes this year. So I will keep using them until the the chew spots become worse.

Another really good speed session and although the experiment failed, it did let me figure out what was going on with Mary’s FitBit and an easy solution when she is having issues with syncing.