Notes
Workout on the treadmill- 3x mile @ threshold
This was one of the most unique workouts I've ever done. I got on the treadmill with the hopes of accomplishing the workout before we left the port of Costa Maya, Mexico. In port the ship was mostly stationary, except for the spattering of larger winds now and then, and that made treadmill running much easier. I got through one and a half of the miles at threshold in port, and then the boat started to move. I had felt this movement already this week, but never during a workout. The even slightly faster pace of threshold made the movement of the boat all that much more apparent and trying. My first mile piece at threshold felt great- my legs felt springy and fresh, my breathing was steady and easy, and the paces were coming without much effort. The first half of my second piece felt really good as well, and then went the boat started to move things went downhill a bit. The second half of my piece of really hard- every 5 seconds the boat would ride the unfortunate side of a wave, and I would feel like I was running up a significant incline for about 5 seconds. Then the incline would go away momentarily, and then it would come back again. The first half of the piece felt awesome, and by the end of the second mile my hamstrings and flutes were tightening up so badly I wondered if I could finish, and my breathing had become labored and way too fast for a mile at threshold. I did finish the piece, thankfully, and during the recovery tried to give myself a pep talk for the third one. Maybe I would just have to slow the pace? Maybe shorten it? As pathetic as it sounds, running up what was a significant incline that came and went was making even my very do-able and approachable workout at threshold feel far too hard.
I started into piece number 3 and felt the hamstring and glute tightening coming back. The first two minutes were hard, and then I had the realization that changed the course of my week. If I let myself physically move backwards on the treadmill when the boat floated "up" a wave, and then let myself physically move forward on the treadmill when the boat floated "down" a wave, I could keep my effort consistent and also not feel like I was running uphill. So that's what I did- and I cannot imagine how strange it must have looked to anybody watching me. About every 10 seconds I did a forward and backward shift across the full length of the treadmill. About five seconds so slowly drift from being right near the handholds and the screen to being at the very end of the next, and then about five seconds to slowly drift all the way back up towards the screen. It sounds absolutely ridiculous, however, for the last 5 minutes of the one mile piece, my hamstrings and flutes felt totally find, my breathing went back to being stable and fairly easy, and I finished the piece at an even faster threshold pace the the previous piece. It was a bizarre experience.
overall the workout felt good. Looking forward to my next one which will be both not on a treadmill and not at 10,000 feet. I haven't had a workout that hit both of those criteria in two weeks.
This realization also influenced the rest of my runs this week- and for 30 or 45 or 60 minutes I'd go up to the treadmill and run at a steady pace while also moving up and down the belt. I'm okay that that week of training is over.