I eventually managed to get on the treadmill yesterday at half past five. I ran for 10 mins at varying speeds, running at each speed for 1 minute; 3kmh, 6kmh, 9kmh, 12kmh, 10kmh, 14kmh, 6kmr, 10kmr, 6kmr. The remaining time I ran between 9kmr – 10kmr until I completed 3 miles:

• Distance – 3 miles
• Time – 29:46
• Pace – 9:55
• Route – Treadmill

I’ve not written up about any runs I’ve done for the last week, however the main thing is that I have been running!

I read somewhere that running on a treadmill is easier than running outside since the “conveyor belt” moves underneath you (that’s obvious isn’t it!). In order to make the running more in line with running outside you should set the treadmill to an incline of 1%. Therefore on my treadmill runs I have run at an incline of 2% this week.

On Sunday (20th April) I didn’t increase the mileage of my runs, mainly because I couldn’t remember the route for the longer run (!!) so just did 2 miles again – however I managed to do this without stopping at all so I was very impressed with that:

• Distance – 2.02 miles
• Time – 20:20
• Pace – 10:03
• Route – Canal and Leek Road

On Tuesday, I increased the mileage to 2.5 miles:

• Distance – 2.5 miles
• Time – 26:21
• Pace – 10:24
• Route – Treadmill w/ 2% incline

On Thursday I decided to use one of the programmes that my treadmill has will an attempt to do some tempo training. This worked quite well, however the programmes last for 10 minutes and if you want to continue running after this time, you need to stop and reset the treadmill before continuing so the run was effectively split into 2 (since 10mins was not enough exercise for me). Additionally the first and last runs were so slow they infuriated me – 1km/hour is sooo slow, much slower than I even walk!

Tempo run:

• Distance – 1.3 km
• Time – 10.00
• Pace – 12:20
• Route – Treadmill – programme 3

• Distance – 2.7km
• Time – 15.52
• Pace – 9.26
• Route – Treadmill

This means that in total I did run 2.5 miles. I think that the tempo run helped with my speed, which is borne out by Sunday’s run. Additionally, as I’m getting fitter, I don’t need to stop and walk so often which also has an impact on my speed.

On Sunday’s run I planned my route in advance. I had hoped to run 3 miles but didn’t quite manage it. However I now have a route planned which is 3 miles so I will do that next time I need to:

• Distance – 2.73 miles
• Time – 26:02
• Pace – 9:32
• Route – Canal to Biddulph Way and back

I intend to run 3 miles both today and Thursday, run 2 miles on Saturday (I’m not sure yet whether this will be outside or not) and then increase Sunday’s run to 4 miles