Run 479: Treadmill with bonus warm water

Run 479
Average pace: 6:28/km
Location: Canada Games Pool (treadmill)
Distance: 4.56 km
Time: 29:33
Weather: n/a
Temp: n/a
Wind: n/a
BPM: 161
Stride: n/a
Weight: 165.7 pounds
Total distance to date: 3785 km
Devices/apps: Apple Watch, iPhone (for music) and Matrix treadmill (for running)

It’s been 25 days since my last treadmill run and I can’t say I’ve missed the treadmill because I hate it. But tonight it seemed time to renew my passion for disliking it.

The run went without incident, save for forgetting to turn the fan on at the start. I’m not sure why anyone would leave the fan off, the whole place is incredibly humid, which is not really conducive to a comfortable workout, so every little bit helps. Maybe some people are fanophobes. One might say they’re not fans…of fans. Ho ho.

Anyway, I did remember my water bottle and this compensated somewhat. I still felt slow and sluggish (reflected in my pace) and curiously for the first ten minutes or so my ankles were sore, something that never bothers me when running. Odd, and another reason to hate treadmills. Once I warmed up they were fine and they feel fine now, but still, weird. And unpleasant.

I chose the “fat burn” setting and this apparently increases the elevation periodically, which would explain why the run would become much harder at seemingly random intervals. I ramped the incline down a couple of times but kept the speed mostly at 6 and leaning more toward 5.5 in the last stretch. It’s still hard to adjust settings to my natural pace. I find it works bets if I go all Zen and don’t look at the numbers and concentrate on how my legs feel. Too slow, nudge the speed up. Too fast, nudge it down. It worked a little better tonight than previously.

Overall, though, I’m really itching to run outside again. The heavy rain and mild temperatures have caused the new snow to melt fairly rapidly. The hard crusty snow underneath will take longer so I’m still not expecting anything before March, but hope, like repeated snowstorms, springs eternal.

 

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