Today, I did a Cheater 5K and am still proud of how well I ran.

The breeze was coming out of the Northwest, well I guess it was a bit more than a breeze since the weather app said it was pretty steady at 20 mph and gusting higher. When you add that to temps in the mid 20’s, that is well below my personal safety threshold for running outside.

Which meant another treadmill session.

Last night I had a sneaking suspicion looking at the forecast that I would be indoors today and had thought about what I wanted to do for my “faster” session today. In the end I figured that if I had to do a treadmill today that I was going to see how long I could last at race pace (well at least what I would love my race pace to be).

At this point I would love to be able to maintain a sub 7:00 minute pace for a 5K, something I have not done for a while.

However, I am not in that kind of shape physically or mentally at this point in my training. So I will be honest that going in, I didn’t have a lot of confidence that I could do the whole run at that pace, which meant that I wouldn’t do it even if I could do it.

As Henry Ford once said and something that I had posted in my classrooms when I was a teacher.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t–you’re right.

Guess what – he was right.

I did a mile warm-up at 7.0 mph, stopped, reset my playlist – for speedwork on the treadmill I like to listen to Heilung (a German group that I don’t understand anything they say, but the beat is perfect for me and running faster), composed myself and set the speed to 8.7 mph and ran.

The first mile wasn’t bad, actually I felt quite strong and thought that I would be able to get at least 2.0 miles in at that pace.

Err no. I got to 1.10 and I lost my focus. My fault and I know exactly what happened. One of my neighbors got on the treadmill next to me and while I didn’t acknowledge him or anything, I lost it. I got to thinking about a few other things unrelated to running fast on that damn treadmill.

Where is that mental toughness Harold…something as minor as someone you know getting on a treadmill beside you shouldn’t cause you to loose focus that easily. Well it did. I made it to 1.30 and had a choice to make.

1. Either slow down and change the workout or
2. Reach out with my right hand and hang on to the treadmill and not change the speed.

I chose number 2.

Yeah, I know that this treadmill cheating, screws with your form, is not exactly running the same speed and all that other nonsense. However, at the same time it forces my legs to keep turning over at a faster than usual speed and while it might be a quick rest mentally, it is a faster recovery period than I would do otherwise.

The rest of the 5K was still done at 8.7 mph, but every 0.1, I would alternate holding on to the treadmill with my right hand and then running hands-free. With that idea in my head I completed the next 1.8 miles.

That is why I call this run a Cheater 5K, since I didn’t do it without holding onto the treadmill, but at the same time judging by how wet my t-shirt was, it was still a quality workout.

I even got a compliment from my neighbor once I got done. I walked for a quarter mile to get the body back to normal.

Then I did a mile cool-down at 7.0 mph.

The Reebok RunFasts did a great job. No issues with the shoes, so I can’t blame them at all for anything – they did exactly what they were supposed to do.

The reality is that

While I did hang-on to the treadmill way too much for the last 1.8, my legs held up quite nicely at race pace for the 5K distance. Which was a huge confidence builder!!! It means that my body CAN DO IT, now I just have to get the brain to figure out that I will not die if I attempt to run a sub 21:20 (it would be a new post-55 PR).

Now I “know” it is possible for me to run that fast, I almost did it today. Every so often I will repeat this workout to see where I am in regards to my readiness to chase after that fast 5K.

The other thing is that I am following another Shaw on Strava and his running has motivated me to believe that I can take my running up a notch or two, even though I am past that 60 age group marker. While I am not in John Shaw’s class by any stretch of the imagination, since I started following him on Strava, his runs do give me permission to believe that I can run faster than I thought that I could. He is older than I am and running much faster times. I have to live up to that Shaw surname and the example he has given me.

Now to loose that 15 pounds, train smahter (control the things I can) and not be stoopid about things that I can’t control. I want to do it, now to actually get out there and do it, without injuring or breaking the old fart’s body. 😉

I will get there, but now to do the process to get there and yes, it is a process.

This morning was the usual nasty storm day routine, get up walk Bennie before the sun was up, to see what it was like outside, get ready to do chauffeur duty and then plan on doing whatever workout I had planned over at Planet Fitness’ treadmill.

Well two out three ain’t bad.

Bennie’s walk was fairly nasty – the snow was great for snow ball fights and making a snowman, but heavy wet and nasty for moving it around to get it out of the driveway(s). Chauffeur duty went without a problem, 4WD all the way in and just going as fast as I was comfortable driving – so there was a line of traffic behind me – too bad.

On the way over to the gym I had to stop at Wally World for cat litter and the most important thing wine. We have a glass of wine with our evening meal (gotta be healthy doncha know) and there wasn’t any in the house, so I had to stop and get a nice Paisano.

By the time I got out of there the wind was really picking up, which along with the heavy, wet snow I thought it was a better idea to get home in case the power went out (luckily it didn’t). However, that meant that my workout would have to wait.

No need to worry – I got too much of a workout in this morning.

After I got home, I spent two and half hours behind the snowblower. It might sound like something that is pretty easy, but moving that beast around in heavy wet snow is a serious upper and lower body workout. Although it was still snowing heavily, by the time I got done I was completely soaked through all my layers and starting to shiver a little, so I was glad that I was done.

After getting dry clothes on, all I could manage to do was sit on the couch for about 15-20 minutes to warm-up and get up enough energy to help get lunch going. One thing about being so tired is that it lowers my ability to resist indulging in food that I am attempting to avoid.

While I am looking closer at the idea of Low Carbohydrate eating, I haven’t really decided whether it is for me or not yet. There is a lot more to it that I want to understand and think about before I commit to doing anything drastic. However, I am attempting lower my carbs intake just as a matter of course, especially the amount of processed foods that end up going down the pie hole.

I craved the salt and the fastest way to get salt into me is chips, so I indulged.

Then I sat on the couch and the next thing that I knew it was almost time for me to head back out to get my gym workout in – one of those lights-out, nobodies home, kind of naps.

Yeah I had planned on going to the gym even though I had a fairly intense workout behind the snowblower this morning.

The roads were still nasty in Sidney, but got a lot better once I got to Augusta, so the traveling was a lot better this afternoon. Then while changing, I decided that there was no way that I was going to do a quality speed work session as tired as I was feeling, plus the chips and egg salad sandwich were not sitting too well in the tummy. I figured that I would start at 7 mph and see how I felt after a mile and go from there.

Everything was fine until about a quarter mile and while I got another quarter in, I had to make a mad dash for the locker room. That upset stomach wasn’t going to wait. I came pretty close to not getting back out on the treadmill.

However, I still had about an hour and half that I would need to do something else and I was feeling a bit better after my “locker room visit”, so I got back on the treadmill. I started over and figured that it had to be better than the first try.

No issues, after about a half mile another runner got on the treadmill beside me and setup at the same speed. Now this guy looked like a collegiate kind of runner. Young, tall, whippet lean and yeah, me old fat and gray. 🙂

We may have done the first mile the same speed, but he was doing a progression work out and picked up the speed .2 every half mile. I am pretty sure at 4.0 miles to finish up 5.0 miles he cranked it hard – luckily for my ego, I had finished my workout.

Ahhhh to be young and able to run like that – yes, I was and am jealous. It is just part of the aging process to be jealous of those that are now younger than me.

Since he was doing a progression workout, I did a much more conservative one through 3.0 miles. At that point my legs were pretty much toast and I knew that holding a steady faster pace wasn’t going to happen after this morning’s workout. So I decided to do some strides to take my mind off things. I did 4 x 0.1 and 1 x 0.2 @ 9.2 mph to finish up the 4.0 miles.

At that point, I was tired, but still had a lot of time left before I needed to get going, so I did .25 @ 15% incline at 4.0 mph and then went out back and abused the old body on the foam roller for about 20 minutes.

This was not the workout that I had planned, but it was still a helluva workout, when you add in the snowblowing stuff to the treadmill time, it was more than I usually do in a day.

In other words a really good day.

After yesterday’s walk with grips on – yeah the ice was pretty bad down-back

I wasn’t sure about how it would be down there this morning, but I am not all that keen on the grips, especially running in them, so I decided to chance just wearing my trail running shoes on Bennie’s long walk.

Walking down there was not great, but doable in the trail shoes, but when I did a couple of quick pickups the shoes couldn’t get a good grip due to the ice underneath the slush and light snow that fell last night.

So I decided that discretion was the better part valor and that I would run in Augusta or hit the treadmill, if the roads were not all that great.

When I went by the bank on Outer Civic Center Drive, it said 31*F and while the roads seemed a little wet looking, they also had plenty of whatever Augusta is using this year to treat the roads. I had the truck in 2WD and was having no issues – a good sign. Usually in 2WD if the road is not good for running, the rear end sliding around usually lets me know pretty quickly.

While going into Planet Fitness the parking lot felt solid, so I decided to do my planned 7.0 miles outside. Especially, since tomorrow it sounds like we are going to get another 4-12 inches of snow – depending upon where the snow/freezing rain line ends up. Which means more treadmill time, so I needed to take advantage of decent weather while it was there.

31*F isn’t real warm and there was just a little breeze (just enough to be a pain), so I geared up for freezing temps and headed out the door. I wasn’t looking to go fast, just get in the 7.0 miles. I started out comfortably and kept it at acomfortable effort level until I had 2.0 miles left and then I did pick it up a little.

The roads in Augusta were fine and even though there is a lot more traffic on Outer Civic Center Drive, the breakdown lane makes it a LOT safer to run on than running out where I live. That jumping/running onto the road shoulders and not being able to see what you are running on can get dicey pretty quickly and then when you are attempting to get back on the tar – if there is still snow on your feet…well that can get interesting too. Especially, doing it multiple times during a run – a some point the law of averages tends to catch up with you and something goes wrong at the worst time.

It wasn’t anything special as far as runs go. It was one of those get it done runs where you put good miles on the legs and smile when you are done.

I know I did.