Push Ups, A Lunchtime Run and Stride Clinic Tomorrow!

This morning, I started Week 5 of the push up challenge again - this time on column 3.  I've decided that it doesn't need to be at the beginning of a real week anymore - I'm just going to do the next workout every other day or two until I finish this damn thing.  Again, I couldn't keep up with the "expected" number of push ups, but also again I ended up doing more push ups than I ever have done before.  150 of them.  36, 30, 30, 24, and 30.  The next time I do pushups will be 8 sets instead of 5...it should be interesting.

I didn't get back to the gym this morning for another go at the new treadmills, however, there was a 90 minute gap in my work schedule at lunchtime.  I think we all know what that means :-)

I did another heart rate program - this time I set it for 150 bpm.  I intended to do somewhere around 3 or 4 miles, depending on the time.  I ended up running much faster today than yesterday - 10:44/mile pace with an Avg HR of 148 vs. 12:19/mile pace with an Avg HR of 146 yesterday.  Not sure how I'm seeing such a huge difference in a matter of 30 hours, but I'll just chalk it up to good days and bad days.

I tried connecting my iPod into the dock connector/iPod holder of the treadmill and it did not connect.  It's probably made for the newer, color-screen, slimmer iPods - I'm not sure.  However, this treadmill has a lot of space below the console and it does not vibrate and shake while I'm running.  So, I was able to use my hard-drive based iPod on this treadmill without all of the skipping that normally happened on the older treadmills.  How nice to have my entire music collection at my disposal for a run!  I ended up listening to REM's Life's Rich Pageant.

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This weekend will be very exciting for me in the running department.  Saturday morning I have Stride Clinic and I'll likely go on a long run on Sunday morning when the temperatures are supposed to be in the mid 40s (going up to the high 50s in the afternoon!).

A while back I had signed up for my Running Club's Stride Clinic.  Basically, they have a team of experts (Running Coaches, Physical Therapists, Podiatrists, etc.) watch you run on a treadmill and then give you feedback.  I'm interested to know if there is anything I can do to my running form that will make me a better / faster / less injury prone runner.  I've been wanting to do this for quite some time and never got around to it, so I'm really glad I finally signed up.  Stay tuned for a report of what they find...