Mini Goal Met

I've been thinking about the goal I set for myself all week. Running 25 minutes straight on a treadmill is daunting, especially when you hate treadmills and haven't been running outside in quite some time. I'm out of shape. Well, I guess I can't be out of shape if I've never really been in shape. But you know what I mean, right? Last summer I was able to run about 25 at a time (I usually fluctauted between 22-28), but I couldn't event imagine running the same distance on a treadmill. The treadmill is my demon!

So all week I've been thinking about running for 25 minutes, and each day that I've been running, I've pushed myself, but never hard enough. I've been running longer intervals (longer than I'm used to with the Couch to 5k program, at least) and pushing myself to get in about 2.0 miles each time I hit the gym. This morning I woke up very tired (I only got 7 hours of sleep, and I know my body needs at least 8), and I had to drag myself out of bed. I procrastinated a little bit, but I got myself to the gym and on the treadmill. My goal for the work-out was to run a mile, at which point I would evaluate how my run was going, and add more time if I wanted. Everytime the treadmill was about to send me to a cool down, I added a minute. Then I had been running for 25 minutes (!) and I allowed the machine to cool me down with a brisk walk. At the end of my walk I decided, HEY! You can run more. You've pushed yourself before, push yourself again. So I added another 5 minutes of running, totalling 30 minutes and 2.5 miles. That just may be the longest and furthest I've run in one workout!

Another exciting thing is that in my past two work outs before today's I've ended with 0.5 miles at 6.0 mph, which is something I've never been able to do before. I think tomorrow I'm going to do 2-minute intervals at 6.0 mph. We'll see how that goes!