Treadmill time and you know something, I rather enjoy doing my speedwork on the treadmill rather than on the track or using a marked trail. For me at least I just get to focus on running at the correct pace and learn how it feels to run at that speed. Even though I know there is a transition to running the same speeds outside, it is helping me this year learn more about my running.

I know treadmills are not for everyone, but they are working for me.

Today’s workout called for a 5 x 1K, but since I didn’t feel like dealing with the conversion and then have a 400m recovery to deal with that distance conversion as well on the treadmill, I decided to do a 4 x .75 with .25 recoveries at 10K pace instead. This kept me at the 3.0 mile goal total for my faster repeats.

This increasing the distance of the fast repeats is getting to the distances that I don’t enjoy – at all. In fact I rather believe that they suck, especially the last three. I am an old sprinter and have the mindset that running multiple laps around a track or in this case for several minutes at a hard pace – multiple times just ain’t that much fun for me.

It isn’t that I can’t do it, it is more that I do not like to do them.

Okay enough whining about having to run fast/hard for longer than a quarter or half mile. What did I actually end up doing.

1.0 mile warm-up @ 6.3 mph

4 x .75 @ 8.3 mph – The first one or two were not really all that bad, the third one seemed to be longer than 3/4 of a mile and the last one was just run hard, keep running, focus on keeping good form and not give up on the repeat. I finished this part of the workout and was happy to be done with it.

4 x .25 @ 6.2 mph – recovery

1 x .25 @ 8.6 mph – I really wanted to do 3 of these, but after the 4 x .75 fast repeats the legs just didn’t have a lot of pop left in them and I decided to not even attempt to try any more. I didn’t want to tempt fate too much by running faster beyond the planned workout.

.50 @ 6.3 mph – a comfortable pace to recover from everything.

.75 @ 6.6 mph – just wanting to get it done.

.25 @ 7.8 mph – race pace for the last quarter. I didn’t have any issues running this pace even though the legs were pretty much toast.

A total of 7.0 miles and when I got done, I know that I was glad to be done.

It was not a workout that I enjoy. Once I get beyond half mile repeats it gets into an area where I am not strong. However, I also know without any doubt that this is one the areas that I need to focus on to get stronger for racing at any distance – my stamina.

This is one of the reasons that I specifically chose the Hansons Method, I knew that it would force me to get out of my comfort zone, do the longer repeat that will help me improve my biggest weakness.

A good workout that did take me out of my comfort zone.