Treadmills are misleading

I'm almost done with my first three weeks of training for the quarter marathon at the end of March, and so far it's gone pretty well. I haven't missed a workout, and I've done the required distances, even though I always have to walk for a little while. Since it's so cold outside (and gets dark so early), most of my workouts have been on the treadmill at the gym, and I thought I was getting pretty good.

But today it's 40 degrees and sunny: a perfect day for running outside. So I laced up my running shoes, mapped out a route to West Hartford Center and back (which is just over 3 miles total) and set out. It was the most discouraging run I've had because I had to stop and walk so often. I maybe ended up running half the distance and walking the rest. It makes me feel totally unprepared and behind.

Of course, I should put this in perspective and try not to let it get me down. First off, it's 40 degrees outside, which is much rougher on the lungs than the 70+ degree air in a gym. Second, the route to Blue Back is VERY hilly, and even a little incline makes it so much harder to keep up the pace. Along with that, treadmills always help you a long a little bit, because the ground moves itself under your feet. Outside running is always harder. Finally, it's been three weeks. Cut yourself some slack, Liz; three weeks ago, you hadn't run at all in three months, and now you expect to run three miles over hill and dale with no trouble?

That's my rant/personal pep talk of the day. The end.

Blog Fail

Clearly I have majorly failed in keeping up with this blog. But instead of trying to go back and catch up, I'll just start from where I am now and go from there.

Before this week, the last time I went for a run was the 5k during the Hartford Marathon, which was back in the middle of October (got my personal best time of 35 minutes and something). Being in a show got in the way of running, and then I just fell off the wagon. But today was my third day of training for the Greater Hartford 1/4 Marathon...6.55 miles around a reservoir in West Hartford on March 31. I'm in much better shape than I expected to be at this point, and I'm definitely in better shape than I was a year ago before I started running. So far, I've done 1.5 miles running Tuesday, then about 30 min. of elliptical/biking yesterday, and today I did 2 miles plus 4 1-minute intervals (run for a minute, walk for a minute to rest).

So far so good. With 12 weeks of training, I should be able to kick butt at this one. It'll be the longest race I've ever done, with second place going to the 5-miler I did last year on Father's Day in Branford. I didn't do as well at that as I would have hoped, so this time I'm hoping to stick to it and possibly even run the entire thing without stopping. That's my ultimate goal, anyway.

And whether that happens or not, I'll still be running a 5k two weeks later with my friend Charity, in the same Bloomfield 5k I did as my very first race last year. We're thinking about making it a tradition. :)