Overcoming excuses to run outside (22-miler in 3:33:29) #twit2fit #running

Posted on September 26, 2009 by Thomas Powell

I’ve been mostly “treadmill-bound” for the last several weeks.  Part of it is due to schedule conflicts–it’s hard to run outside when your only options are in the middle of the night and before the sun is up in the morning, especially when you have kids to watch.  However, part of my treadmill is due to making excuses on why I couldn’t run outside.  Here they are:

  1. It’s hot (took care of that one this summer)
  2. It’s rainy out (I added this one after overcoming my aversion to hot weather)
  3. My wife worked last night, so I can’t go run all over the place at 5:30 am [on a Saturday]
  4. Midday runs in my neighborhood are congested and cross busy streets.
  5. I can watch football most of the day if I run my long run on the treadmill.

I let my wife sleep in today, so I was going to run the treadmill downstairs for 3 1/2 hours for 22 miles.  I decided that, for some reason, that wouldn’t be very productive or enjoyable.

Second option, I decided to work out a 7-1/3 mile loop to run 3 times.  I figured that I’d just attempt to bail out of the run after the first loop.

Instead, 2 miles into the loop run, I decided to go catch up with my wife at Seneca Park for a Filipino gathering (starting in Fern Creek)… here’s the map for the first half:

Second half: I hung out a little while there before attempting to continue on to the Cherokee Park Scenic Loop [almost found it, too]–my wife was headed to Bellarmine for the Irish festival, so I planned to finish up there. Getting lost in the hills between Cherokee and Seneca was rough, as was the muscle pain from stopping my run for an extended period of time, but I managed to fight through it:

This run was actually slower than my last 20+ miler, but the average incline was about 1% greater, and the stop in the middle really killed my momentum.

Be Sociable, Share!
Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts
  • Best run ever In terms of overall enjoyment, this was probably my best run ever, 5.3 miles in 44:31 minutes. 69'F, sunny, slight breeze, Friday, no big meetings left this week, legs fairly fresh...  if every run felt like this, I'd run 100s of miles per week. I've spent the last week trying......
  • 40 days in a row #twit2fit I'm still able to run today after running my 3x800 intervals yesterday @ 6:53 pace. I dropped down to 172 pounds from an average of well over 175, mainly from both lack of food and liquids yesterday. I wouldn't recommend it. Today's run was a 3.2 mile hill run at......
  • Do not try this at home. I was aiming for 16 miles today, and planned to get moving as close to 5:30 as possible. Instead, I intentionally disabled my 5:30 alarm at 5:15 and then woke up just before my 6:30 alarm. I ate one of those Little Debbie Brownie things for pre-run fuel. Awful nutrition,......
  • Today's Running Plan (Streak day 18!) #twit2fit Tempo! (on a treadmill) 0.0-0.5 mile: warm-up at 10'33" / 5.7 mph 0.5-3.5 mile: tempo at 8'14" / 7.3 mph 3.5-4.1 mile: cool-down at 10'33" / 5.7 mph Update for Actual: 0.0-0.5 mile: warm-up at 10'33" / 5.7 mph 0.5-3.6 mile: tempo at 8'14" / 7.3 mph (5 km at......
  • Tempo run 8.04 miles in 65 minutes (8'06" pace) I run my tempo and intervals on the treadmill (especially as opposed to running in th dark during rush hour). It's not optimal for training I guess, but I'd rather run the treadmill than miss another tempo or interval week. Mile point - speed (pace) 1% incline 0 - 6.2......
  • My planned running schedule for this week - 75 miles #running With my schedule this week, it looks like the following schedule will be how my attempt at 75 miles will happen: Monday: 7 miles AM - Recovery (9'30" pace or slower) Actual workout:  nice and easy.  Legs are hard to wake up. 6 miles PM - Easy (natural, full stride,......
Blog Traffic Exchange Blog Traffic Exchange
This entry was posted in motivation, workout commentary and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.