Long Lost Post - Treadmill Half Marathon (Written 9/4)

Treadmill Half Marathon

*Written 9/4

Monday morning I ran (raced) a half marathon on the treadmill. This probably sounds miserable to most people, runners and non-runners. Good music is what got me through it, and my Bennett and Ian cheer squad at the end :)

I’ve been feeling too cheap to pay for a race entry so I decided I could just push myself on a half marathon long run and that would work well enough for a fitness test. I would have much preferred to log those miles outside, but once all schedules were juggled, this was really the only weekend to “race.” So, Treadmill it was since Megan was off racing! Admittedly, a treadmill time is not the same as an outdoor time, but I figured I could still push myself and have some idea of how I was doing.

I had planned to run this Saturday, but then decided I really needed a lazy day. I had planned to run this Sunday, but when I went to get set up, I realized I was out of shot blocks. So, Monday became the default. Poor planning on my part since we were going outlet shopping that afternoon. My legs were not happy with me by the end of the day.

I really struggled in trying to figure out how to pace myself in this run. I had no idea what was realistic. My first goal was to run the half in under 2 hours, and I thought I could definitely do that. But how far under I wasn’t sure. So I started at 6.7MPH (8:57 I think) and started running. At 10 miles I realized I could pick up the pace, and probably could have earlier. Over the next 5K I slowly started running faster. In the last mile I just started increasing the speed every few minutes, finally hitting 13.1 at a 7.9MPH. Overall time was 1:56:??(maybe somewhere between 10-15 is Bennett’s estimate). Stupidly I switched the treadmill from counting down the time to telling me time ran, and apparently at that amount of time it doesn’t display seconds. I’m really bummed about that.

I’m pretty happy with that time! I was definitely tired at the end, and could tell I ran hard, but I didn’t totally max myself out. I think I could have gone a little faster. I am not sure what this means for my Richmond time since it was on the treadmill, but I’m feeling more hopeful.