5 miles in 34:42 @ 1% incline – felt really good. Had to delay the run as the cat expressed her displeasure at something, on my shoes.

Yeah…I went to put on my shoes to get on the treadmill and smelt something a bit odd. Realized the cat had relieved herself on my runners for some reason. In the laundry with those! Then out came the disinfectant and some other cleaners and I cleaned up around the area of the treadmill and where my shoes had been.

I didn’t want to use my outdoor shoes on the treadmill as they were a bit muddy so grabbed my next set from the cue, laced them up and got going. Not too bad a thing though – the current treadmill pair are probably going to be tapped out for mileage in a couple weeks anyway – this gives me an excuse to break in a new pair so that they are ready when that pair is done.

A bit of a delayed start to the run but in the end it was a very strong run…potentially the fastest I have ever done the 5 mile distance on the treadmill. 34:42 @ 1% incline. I did cycles for the run 1 min at slower speed, 1 min at faster, 1 min slower, 2 min faster and then repeat the whole 5 minute cycle until the 5 miles is done. I kept the slower speed at 7.5 mph through the run but for the faster run I started the first cycle at 9 mph and then upped the speed by 0.1 mph every cycle so that between 25-30 minutes the faster speed was 9.5 mph. I knew I was going to probably only have one cycle left if I pushed at that point so I bumped the slower speed to 8 mph for that last cycle and the faster speed to 10 mph. That was a bit tough, but felt really, really good.

Apparently only 32 days until the Manitoba Marathon – in the second last heavy mileage week before the taper begins. Attitude is good – going to keep pushing hard!