Days 1-6 of a runstreak

I will say . . . and will probably change my mind . . . but a run streak is not that hard.  I am lucky in that I have a treadmill in my living room.  It was put there for my husband to be more active because he said he would use it if it was there, but I have used it more than him, and I don't use it very often.  It has mostly been a jungle gym for Maddox.  However, it is great for a run streak in November when I get home after dark and don't want run outside for 1 mile. 

My first run was a 1 mile run on my treadmill on November 1st.  I discovered that my Garmin watch is pretty accurate to my treadmill.  It was slightly off, but there was a moment when the belt slipped on the treadmill and I grabbed the railing. If my arms are not moving, then the Garmin does not accurately count my steps on a run. 

My second run was also on the treadmill.  It was still light out when I got home, but I was home alone with Maddox and couldn't go outside for a run.  I decided to only do 3.1 miles because, well let's face it, treadmill running sucks (even for 1 mile).  Again I noticed that if my arms weren't moving then the Garmin wouldn't accurately track distance.  There were a couple times I started swinging my arm faster than my legs to make up for the times that I wiped my face or messed with my phone.  (I don't have this issue when I run outside, probably because of GPS.)

Yay! Saturday and a day home where I can run outside during daylight hours . . . except everyone in my family who could watch Maddox, works on Saturday.  Luckily he started playing with a friend and asked to go to his house for awhile.  So I called the parents and asked if they minded if I went for a run (they live down the street and often the kids just go to each other's house randomly).  So I was able to do a 5 mile run in the rain. yay =|

 It was very wet, I wasn't even halfway done when the water started dripping off the brim of my hat. 

Sunday was another 5 mile run, nothing especially exciting about this run.  

Monday is almost always my rest day, so 1 mile on the treadmill.  

My animals have discovered my electric blanket.

And then yesterday I decided to try 3 miles at the fastest I could run.  I have decided that if I want to get faster, I have to actually work at it.  So the slower miles are nice, but there has to be some sort of faster runs in there so that I actually get faster.  I am not fast, my fastest 3 miles turns out to be a 8:38 min/mile average.  Granted, I don't consider that slow, but I really did feel like I was dying at times.  I even stopped a couple times and walked once or twice.  I think my actually running time was closer to an 8 min/mile, but when you factor in the stops and the walking, it slows down the average.  In my defense (of dying) I ran my normal 3 mile route, and that includes a steep incline at mile 0.2-0.5  with a gradual incline at mile 1-1.5.  I sprinted up that first hill (and then stopped), then ran fairly fast up the second incline (and then stopped).

I did remember after I laid down last night that the fast running is really what causes my hip to hurt the most.  I haven't had an issue with it since I quit doing pace runs, and actually forgot that I had problems with it after the pace runs this summer.  I briefly thought about putting ice on it as I was laying in bed, but then fell asleep.  Once I got to work I noticed it was bothering me again so I put ice on it for a little bit.  

My plan is to keep the slower runs for the majority of my runs, and I'm not looking at pace for my 1 mile runs.  In fact on Monday I set it at a 6 and left it (turns out that is a 9:59 min/mile, for sharing purposes my Garmin rounded down, so the extra 6 seconds were from going over 1 mile).  But I would like to do one faster run a week.  I guess we'll see how that works.  =)