Hitting a Wall

My lunch hour this afternoon consisted of another couch to 5km run. It was a beautiful sunny day in the low 20's; nicer than most of our summer was this year.

I hit the button for week 4 day 3 which is running intervals of 5 and 3 minutes. I started out not too badly but soon realized what a month away from running outside can do.

I ran great through the 3 minute intervals, no problems and not out of breath. So far so good.
But then the 5 minute intervals start and I found that I seemed to be slowing down quite a bit and kept hitting a wall at the 3 minute mark. The good news is that I notice that I am recovering very rapidly during the downtime in-between.

I decided to run down to Eau Claire market and around Princes Island park. The trees are all changing color and the grass is still green. People were everywhere walking, biking and running along the river pathways. I hope that Wednesday will be just as beautiful so I can get outside again.

Stairs, stairs and more stairs

We spent the past three weeks traveling around western Europe and we walked pretty much the entire vacation. We took the stairs at each hotel. At Sacre Coeur in Paris we walked up over 300 stairs to the top for the view and at the leaning tower of Pisa we did the same. I've gotten very seasoned at stair climbing.

Since getting home from vacation last week it's been raining non-stop. So running outside, although much more enjoyable, is not something I plan to subject myself to. My lunch hour today consisted of jogging on the treadmill in the tiny gym at the office. I took it a bit easy and walked 3.5mph and 4mph in between intervals of 6mph minutes and 7-7.5mph at 30 sec.
So that's a fastest time of 8 minute miles. Maybe someday I'll be able to run actual full miles at that speed. For now I'm just happy to get in some fitness.