Oh What Fun It Is To Run On A Treadmill Today, Hey!

With yesterday being an off-day, I knew I had to get to the gym today to keep things going. Thankfully, I'm doing things the right way and haven't had to take time off due to injury. It's just me vs. me during the workouts.

WARM-UP

I did my dynamic stretches on the way to the treadmill to help get things loosened up. Got on the treadmill and got it going on the 1.0 incline. The warm-up felt really good. I wasn't drenched with sweat or really thirsty after I was done. It felt like a warm-up should!

I think I walked for a minute then wanted to get in to the main workout. Figured if the warm-up felt good, the main workout was going to be great.

MAIN WORKOUT

To hit my mile-per-week goal, I knew I could hit 3 miles and still be on target. To make things interesting, I did some short intervals. I'm still not trying to work on speed. Running at the same setting on a treadmill for 30+ minutes can get boring. I think I did .25 mile at one speed, kicked it up for .50 mile then repeated it. It felt good to get the legs moving at a faster than usual rate. I'm especially impressed my knee is still going strong with all the running I've been doing.

COOL DOWN

Oh man. The cool down felt awesome. I was able to get the body to slow down and get my breathing under control again. The only problem I had - after running at a fast pace, having to slow things down made the cool down mile seem like it took forever!

It's interesting I was 1 second slower on my cool down than I was on my warm-up. I love being consistent like that without having to think about it.

STRETCHING

I was able to get my stretching routine in. I changed it up a bit and did some stretches where it made me work on my balance. My balance isn't that bad. I remember from physical therapy some of the stretches they had me doing to help strengthen things around my ankles and knee.

WEIGHTS

I did more free weight exercises today. I like those better than machine exercises. With free weights you have total control over the weight in each arm. With each lift, you have the actual lift part of the exercise and the control part of the exercise. I made sure to do at least one exercise for arms and shoulders.

LAST MILE POWER SONG

Today's LMPS was Power by Kanye West. I'm not a big fan of Kanye West, but he does have some songs with really good beats. This one got me moving during the last .50 mile of my main workout.

Burn Off Frustration Energy

Today's workout was fueled by missing out on registering for the Bayshore Half Marathon in Traverse City, MI this morning. I didn't expect it to sell out in 19 minutes! Grr!! I was in the middle of trying to register when I found out it reached capacity. I was able to sign up for the 10k instead. I know the marathon still had openings, but I don't think I'd be ready for it. Besides, I want to make sure my mind and body are ready for a full marathon instead of just jumping into one. It's not like it's a 5k where you can typically go out and do one on a few weeks of training.

WARM-UP

I hit the treadmill with a purpose today. I got the treadmill up to 1.0 incline and kicked up the pace. I still kept things in check so I didn't over do it though. It was only the warm-up. I'm still amazed at how much I sweat when running on a treadmill. I was definitely warmed up after the 1.0 mile.

Because the gym was pretty packed, I ended up walking on the treadmill for a couple minutes to prepare myself for the main workout.

MAIN WORKOUT

I knew I didn't have time to get many miles in tonight. I still wanted to get a good workout in, and be able to get home early enough to spend time with my wife. I settled on running 3 miles. I divided it up into getting the first mile out of the way at a good pace. Second mile was just a bit faster. The third mile....well I left everything I had on that treadmill.

COOL DOWN

The start of the cool down was rough. I was beat. I kept telling myself to just make it through 1 more mile and I was done for the day.

STRETCHING

Stretching felt really good. I did the normal stretching routine. So far the stretching routine has served me well. I've been able to take what I learned from physical therapy and keep at it. This means no injuries and no super sore legs.

WEIGHTS

I didn't do too much for weights today. Time crunch made it difficult. I still was able to hit a few leg exercises where I did both legs, then each leg separately. I like breaking up lifting weights with legs this way. It helps focus the lifting on each leg.  

LAST MILE POWER SONG

Today's LMPS was Champ by Ghostface Killah. I found this song searching for gymnastic stretching routines on YouTube. There was a video that had this song playing during the entire stretching routine. There's a really fast guitar riff in it, and it has clips that sound like Mickey and Clubber Lang from Rocky III.