Day 42: Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Another day, another workout. After focusing on lifting weights the previous day, I decided it was another treadmill night, and that's precisely what I did.

I started the night with the custom 1 minute walk at 4 MPH before upping the intensity to 5.5 MPH. As I ran, I felt okay, but as time progressed I grew increasingly tired, and my breathing became somewhat of a problem. I think, in times when my breathing becomes an issue, it's not so much that I'm out of breath, but that I'm breathing improperly and shallow. It seems, this is more due to the fact that I am focusing on the clock, rather than the run - so I know going forward, I need to focus more on the run.

With that said, I really didn't notice my breathing being an issue until about the 14 minute mark - I was attempting to run for 15 minutes straight at the 5.5 MPH; to do this, I would have to run until the 16 minute mark. But at the 14th minute or so, I began worrying what the clock was telling me, and began having issues. I finally did make it to the 16 minute mark, after all, it was only two minutes, but I did struggle a bit on the breathing - however, my legs still felt fine.

Then I slowed to walk at 4 MPH for 2 minutes. At the 18 minute mark, I wanted to run for the next 5 minutes, but I failed quite miserably - this time, due to my legs feeling fatigued. So I ran only 2 minutes until the 20 minute mark. I again walked for 2 minutes before trying to run for the next 3 minutes (up to the 25 minute mark) and once again, my legs failed me and I was only able to produce 2 minutes. I then walked for 2 more minutes as I was becoming increasingly exhausted, before running for one final minute to ensure I ran for 20 minutes before slowing my pace to end my 30 minutes on the treadmill.

In total, I walked for 10 minutes at 4 MPH for a distance of .67 miles, I ran at 5.5 MPH for 20 minutes for a distance of 1.83 miles, and in total, I completed 31 minutes for 2.53 MPH.

Initially, on this day, I felt good, but then that faded after my breathing started to go wrong at around the 14 minute mark. After that, every time I began to run, my legs instantly seemed more fatigued, and forced me to slow my pace even further. However, with all that said, I still was able to manage a respectable 20 minutes worth of running activity, which is still quite a fit in my own right, considering where I started from - and I never want to forget that and become discouraged over one night's worth of activity. Instead, I will try again, and again, until ultimately, I am running the entire 30 minutes - perhaps one day in the not so distant future, I can also complete a 30 minute 5k, but I won't get ahead of myself just yet. For now, I am happy with what I am accomplishing, and that's all that matters to me.