Thursday, January 07, 2010

TREADMILL

My mother has a treadmill which she actually walks on sometimes. At 88 she doesn't go outdoors if there's snow on the ground, so she got this treadmill a couple years ago and has spells of walking on it at 1mph for 5 or so minutes twice a day.

It's snowed here nearly every day for the last two weeks and been bone-chilling cold. I got in an 11-mile run last Wednesday when we visited our daughters in Columbus, OH. It was cold but the roads were clear.

The last 2 days, I've done an hour a day on the elliptical while I was working at the gym. Today I was off, so I just did an hour on Mom's treadmill.

It's set on a little incline, which made it hard to keep up even 12-minute miles. You can change the incline but you have to take off these little support legs and reposition them. Too much trouble, when the small incline can only make me stronger. I took walk breaks of about a minute every 5 minutes, since it was too soon after dinner, which felt like it was in my throat rather than my stomach.

Still kind of a bummer to run for an hour and see only 4.3 miles when I've got this delusion I can run a 4:15 at the Pittsburgh Marathon, May 2, and qualify for Boston. Yeah, I'm on this qualify-for-Boston jag again. It's not gonna happen unless I get my weight down around 115. And that's not gonna happen if I keep eating like I have been.

1 comment:

ShirleyPerly said...

Hey there, Ellie! Just catching up with you. Sorry to hear about the weight regain but you're right in that it is not at all unexpected. I've gained some pounds myself just from not training as much over the holidays and having become accustomed to eating more to sustain my iron training last year. Hopefully they'll go away soon now that I'm back working with my coach. Best wishes to you in 2010!

PS - Got a kick out of reading that your mom has a treadmill!