As you may or may not be aware, Chicago is currently in the middle of a crazy heat wave. We're talking almost 90 degrees by 8:00 AM and heat indexes in the 100s. Most of the running training programs in the area canceled their workouts for this week and, after initially just deciding to make our Wednesday night track workout shorter, Coach Holly decided to cancel it.
What did we do instead of running? We went and got ice cream at a local ice cream parlor!
Well, actually, I did do the workout. 2 mile warm-up, 4x400 meters w/400 meter jog intervals, 1 mile cool down. I just did it on the treadmill at the gym instead. Hey, look, ice cream is my food vice so I wanted to enjoy it guilt-free. And I wanted to get the running miles in.
I've decided that the worst part of doing a speed workout on the treadmill is the cool down. The warm up is boring but I can handle it knowing that I'll get to break it up with some intervals in a little bit. The intervals, of course, are fine since you're constantly changing it up. The cool down, though? I just want to be done! Especially when post-cool down you know you get to really cool down with ice cream!
Anyway, I managed to do the entire workout with the incline on the treadmill set at 1.5. I did my first 400 at 7.6 MPH (approx 7:53 mile), the middle two at 7.5 (approx 8:00 mile), and the last at 7.6 again. I probably could have gone faster but I'm trying not to wear myself out on the track and not have anything left for races and long workouts.
So, five miles total followed by ice cream. And, yes, I ate ice cream before dinner. So sue me. I'm adult. I can do that.
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