Very slow and very steady

That's what she said!

*ahem*

I used a treadmill for the very first time on Wednesday. Hooray for not getting launched off at any point!

I have seen enough of The Biggest Loser to recognize the unending shame of being launched bodily off of a treadmill so I decided to take it as slow as I needed to until I knew I was truly comfortable.

I started out at pretty much dead minimum pace and clicked up the speed one notch at a time until I was thoroughly bored of walking and knew I could safely run.

I felt a little silly moving along at a snails pace for as long as I did (I literally "warmed up" for about 25 minutes and only covered a mile) but the way I see it one day of feeling a touch silly in front of strangers totally beats wasting a year's worth of gym membership because I'm too mortified to ever go back.

Once I decided it was run time I started day one of the 5k to 10k training program app I got for my iPhone.

5k to 10k wk 1 d 1
5 minutes warm up/cool down and  20 minutes of running at an "easy conversational pace".
1.5 miles over 20 minutes at an average pace of 13:28

I started out the run section holding on to the handles but quickly realized that it was really uncomfortable and messing with my posture something fierce, so I let go of them as soon as I (again) was reasonably sure I wasn't going to launch myself.

I ended up starting out much slower than I expected (between 13:00 and 14:00) and struggled a surprising amount for about the first mile. I think in retrospect the newness of the situation and a bit of social anxiety (am I breathing to loud? is everyone watching? NO DON'T LOOK AT THEM, THEY WILL KNOW YOUR SHAME) may have had me breathing more shallow than I normally would. By the end I was able to up the speed considerably and I think I got up to running at a bit slower than 11:00 at one point, but the treadmill readout was not very conductive to tracking that sort of thing so I don't have exact numbers. I had the treadmill at the recommended 1% rise to make the run feel more properly outside-ish.

The treadmill was (as advertised) insanely boring and the lack of wind in your face seriously sucks. Next time I'm putting on the TV - even if I don't listen to it - and positioning myself as close as possible to the giant fan. I am VERY glad I remembered my towel this time. That was gross.

image from http://mastercowfish.blogspot.com but props to Douglas Adams

I do not see myself doing my weekend runs indoors unless I absolutely have to.

I received my Garmin footpod yesterday and after some fiddling I got my watch to notice it. If you get one make sure you're moving while pairing, it took a number of tries and more than a few Google queries to work this one out. I'm really excited to try it out because it annoys me a great deal when I can't functionally upload my runs to the various run sites and trying to read the pace for that split second it shows up on the treadmill readout when you change the speed was awful. I don't understand why you can't toggle between the two if it's obviously programmed in anyway.

Sassy!

I was going to hit the gym tonight in the hopes that working out would fix the unrelenting skull-in-a-vice headache, but I fear running with the unrelenting tummy blahs will have a different ending.

The usual sick rule (above the neck - suck it up, below the neck - go take a nap already!) makes a lot of sense to me with colds... would you say the same line applies to other body systems?