Feeling The Run...

This has been a good running week. I've hit my workout goals & I'm getting used to working a little harder when I lace up my sneakers. Training is very different from that between season, run what I feel, workout. I am kinda liking the challenges I'm putting my body through. That satisfaction you get from a hard workout is really a high I can get used to (after I get over the 'I'm gonna puke' phase, of course ;)). I've also been trying to figure out what different paces 'feel' like. I'm trying not to look at my watch & run by feel and see if I hit my goal. Yesterday I had a 10 miler @ 11:10 pace on tap. This was supposed to be an easy run so after that first mile beeped I pulled my sleeve over the watch face and just ran what felt comfortable. You should have seen the surprised look on my face when I hit stop at that 10 mile mark and found that I'd finished in 1:46 instead of the 1:51 that I had calculated out! Turned out I ran an average 10:41 pace! And best of all was that apart from that first mile or so, which always has me feeling crappy, I felt good the whole time! Comfortable! I am so happy with how this worked out that I'm planning on doing this for all my easy runs. I don't think I can do this when it comes to speed work or tempo runs, I don't know how these paces 'feel' yet (except painful!).

Another thing I'm trying to learn is to run in metric. I seem to do a race or two & some training up in Canada each year & although I grew up metric, I learned to run in imperial & when I run back home the km to go signs mess with my head. So to that end I've set my Nike app to km and am learning that pacing too. I think I'm starting to 'get it'. It was harder that I thought it was going to be.

Today was another easy run. Just 4 miles, and the temperature was hovering just above freezing so I took my new lulu skirt for a spin. There's nothing quite like a piece of new gear & cold wind on your legs to get you excited to run & moving fast! I ran 10:31, 10:28, 9:58, 9:57!!!!!!
Felt great!

Then I hopped on the spin bike at the gym. 11.2 miles in 44 minutes. While I was very unattractively sweating like a pig on that bike, I noticed that most everyone else on the treadmills, regular bikes & ellipticals weren't sweating. Like at all. I, on the other hand, was having my ass handed to me by a spinning bike and my shirt was soaked and sweat was dropping in puddles around me. Is this normal? Either I'm the only one trying hard or I have a sweat problem. And really, how can you read and bike or treadmill? First, my book would be soaked & second, I can't concentrated on a page when I'm up and down in the saddle all the time or running. I don't get it. Ok, that's the end of my rant.

What's it like at your gym? Sweat or no sweat?

Can you read while biking or treading?

How warm does it have to be/or how short a run does it have to be to go tightless in the winter?

Haha! My legs are almost as pink as my shoes!