All This Walking And Getting Nowhere

I did my longest walk on the treadmill on March 7^th, Monday morning. It lasted  two and a half hours at 4.5 percent hill. What it got me were developing blisters on both big toes (fortunately, they didn’t become full blown blisters). The main reason I walked that long was that I had to get caught up with my reading and finished the day’s newspaper and finally got through the previous month’s Runner’s World magazine which I willed myself to finish because the new issue arrived a few days prior.

                Having said that, I don’t remember exactly the last time I ran unless I look in my exercise log. I did run kinda/sorta on the Sunday of the Los Angeles Marathon except I did it on the treadmill. Most of the workout was walking interspersed with 5 minute bouts of jogging (at a 10 % incline mind you!), until I reached an hour and a half. All the while I was glancing at the TV to see the developments of the marathon, then returning to read the Sunday paper while on the move.  When the male winner crossed the finish line, I immediately noticed that it was a record. That was the fastest L.A. Marathon ever regardless of several course changes through the years. If I remember correctly, I’ve run this marathon four times and one of those had similar rainy conditions as the last one. Please don’t ask me what year it was. I don’t feel like digging into the stacks of logbooks accumulated through the years.

                In the past couple of weeks, I’ve managed to reduce my walking time on the treadmill by raising the incline to its maximum 10 % and even though I have to hold on to the handlebars most of the time to keep from falling off, the breathing pattern starts to feel like running after about half an hour. Meaning, the effort feels almost like a run, which I don’t get from a flat terrain brisk walk. Thus, this has enabled me to decrease walking time to about an hour and 15 minutes. When I finally lower to incline back to 2 % for my cool down, it feels like walking downhill. The rest of my workouts remain on the stationary bike. This is the new me without much running to speak of.

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