Tonight was a good solid speed work out – alternating 8 mph periods with 9 mph periods. Finished out 30 minutes with 4.14 miles on the treadmill. Definitely a solid run. It felt good to get moving as I really haven’t had a good running week at this point.
I gave myself a 0.2 mile warm up at 4 mph and 6% incline to stretch out the legs before resetting the treadmill and doing the run.
I also took a 5 minute at 4 mph cool down walk after the run.
I used to do warm ups and cool downs all the time but fell out of the habit – I need to start doing them regularly again. The warm up meant I didn’t spend much of the start of the run working the kinks out and the cool down left me feeling more energized and yet still relaxed after the run. All positive things!
As a bit of a recap for this past week:
I posted about a 10.5 mile run and then another 0.5 mile test run with dogs after on Saturday.
On Sunday I did 13.1 miles on the treadmill practicing run / walk cycles of 5 minutes at 7 mph and 1 minute at 4 mph walk. I need to practice the run / walk cycles more as we are only about 5 weeks out from the 12 hour Lemming Loop and I will need to be doing quite a bit of the cycles in that event. I had planned to go longer but it was getting pretty late and the treadmill broke me mentally. I used to be able to do 20 milers on the treadmill but apparently that wasn’t in the cards that night.
Monday was a planned rest day.
Tuesday, I had some running around to do and didn’t get my run in. Getting to be a common theme…
Wednesday – I decided to take a second crack at running with the dogs – I took Sven out first and he was excited to go…in fact too excited. On Saturday, he ran very well with me with only minor pulling but he kept pulling and trying to lead on this run. He also kept trying to cross in front of me and tripping me up. By the end of a half mile run he was better but I could tell my form was way off. I then took out Arrow and he wanted to go hard too…for about 50 meters…then he kept trying to drag behind and not go. I kept coaxing him to go and we would get going and it would be ok, but then he would drop and sit again. We also had a bit (friendly) pooch who was off leash come bounding up and I wasn’t sure how he was going to react. So I had him sit and he did very well and kept under control (positive points there). But it was a struggle to try to settle into a pace with him as he just kept wanting to stop – basically he just wanted to run free which was not going to happen.
Basically I saw hope for running with both of them but I think in the Sven may be the real runner – the one that enjoys it. Arrow wants to chase Frisbees and balls instead.
I am still playing it by ear but as I watch their personalities, I suspect that my goal of running with both of them together may not happen. They are just too different. I might give it a short try on the weekend as a test.
Anyway, long story short on the dogs is that my legs and back were messed up after those short runs because of the bad form and being pulled in every direction. That blew off any hope of a run on Thursday as I was still pretty messed up.
Tonight’s run (Friday) ended up being a test to see if things had straightened back out…and they had. So, there is yet another thing I need to watch out for while running with the dogs – I need to maintain my form no matter what they are trying to do!
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