This morning, I thought that I would go to the gym ahead of the big storm. I was planning on working from home due to the storm since that was requested by my employer, so slept in a little, checked my email, then headed to the gym. I loved the fact that the gym was practically empty at 7 am, so hopped on the treadmill of choice to get my four miles in.

Almost as soon as I started, I decided to crank up the speed and get it done quickly. I decided to use a 4/1 run /walk ratio, rather than the 3/1 that I have been using. This makes for an interesting challenge since a mile comes around 9:30, and right in the middle of the second walk break. Run during minutes 1-4, walk minute 5, run minutes 6-9, and walk during the tenth minute. During the first mile today, I finished the mile before the second walk break started with a sub-9:00 mile @ 8:50. The second mile came in at 9:02, close to the first mile time. Miles 3 & 4 were fast, just not quite as good as the first two.

What this tells me is that I must slow down early in my run and push hard later on. It also tells me that I need to have a few long slow runs where I am not pushing up the speed at all.

I have started running using the Jeff Galloway run, walk, run method of running. I’ve run a twice this week so far, on Monday evening and again this morning. Monday, I ran 4 1/4 miles using a 3/1 run/walk ratio – run for three minutes, walk for one minute. While it seems so easy for the first 10 or so repetitions, it gets progressively more difficult to run for the entire 3 minute period. The tool I’ve been using is a GymBoss MAX timer, purchased for about $30 from GymBoss. The second time I went to use it (Monday), it wasn’t working. What I found is that if you simply stick it in a gym bag that you carry to work, it likes to turn on and chew up the battery. On Monday evening, I ran using interval training. Tuesday, I lifted using the entire circuit at the YMCA. I am positive I over lifted since as I write this (Thursday), I’m still sore. Since I ran on Monday evening (close to 6:30 PM), and then lifted on Tuesday morning (starting at 5:30 AM or just 11 hours later), I pushed and lifted at weights I haven’t used for a month. I am feeling every bit of my age now.

I did make the mistake of throwing the GymBoss in my bag, only to find a dead battery on Monday, so ended up using the interval workout on the treadmill at work to manually make the 3/1 ratio. Run for minutes 1 through 3, walk for the fourth minute until you’ve covered the distance or worked out for the duration desired. While this was not nearly as brain-dead of a way to accomplish a workout, it does work if you’re willing to put in the effort to make the buttons work for you. Fortunately, the treadmill at work has a “jog” and “run” setting on the intervals that is very easy to configure. I set the jog to my walking speed of 4 MPH and the run to my jogging speed of 6.1 MPH. Each time I hit the interval button, it switched to the faster or the slower speed.

Today, I hit the treadmill at my local YMCA with my GymBoss with a new battery and with renewed effort to make this a strong run. The treadmill seems to have an interval setting but I must need to attend a remedial treadmill setting class because it wasn’t intuitive at all. So, I used the 4 MPH and 6 MPH buttons as a starting point for each interval setting. For my walk, I just pressed the 4 MPH setting. For running, I hit the 6 MPH button and then upped the speed to either 6.1 or a faster speed depending on how I was feeling at the start (or middle of) each run. At times, I was up to 6.2 or even 6.3 MPH. When all was said and done, I covered each of the five miles at a 10:10 pace – way faster than I thought and way faster than if I had just been running. Indeed, it is not much slower at all than plodding along with a run-only method.

While not the fastest way to cover longer distances, this is a new way to easily cover longer distances without any pain and without a significantly more tired body a few hours later.