C25K Week 6 Wrap-up

Another milestone in C25K this week as Day 2 was the last day of run-walk combos. From Day 3 through the remainder of Weeks 7, 8 & 9 it's solid running post-warm-up.

Today, Day 3, I ran for 25 minutes straight. Warming up my left foot felt a little achy, but I started running after the warmup and sure enough it was not a problem for the whole time.

One of the problems I have running on the treadmill is watching the timer on the display. Just like a watched pot never boils, so too a watched timer never speeds up. I'd try not to watch it and sure enough I'd sneak a glance here and there and think, "Ugh, 2 more minutes until walking?"

But today I tried out the Nike +iPod Sport Kit. It contains a sensor that goes on your shoe (or in your shoe if you run in Nikes, I don't) and an adapter that plugs into your Nano, iTouch or iPhone. The sensor transmits your pace and distance to the Nano, etc.

Today I programed it for a 25-minute run. Once my warmup was over I started the Nano and listed to my running playlist. Every 5 minutes a voice would chime in, "5 minutes completed...10 minutes completed," etc. I got a head's-up at the halfway point and from there it counted backwards, "10 minutes remaining...5 minutes remaining." It was great to just run and not worry about checking the timer on the treadmill display. It's a mind game, but I was able to listen to music, watch TV, ignore the time remaining and just run. It made the workout go pretty quick.

However, I didn't calibrate the sensor beforehand, so it told me in 25 minutes I ran .8 miles and burned 10 calories (the treadmill said 2 miles). I'm slow, but not that slow. I'll calibrate it this weekend before I run Sunday morning. I'll post a more detailed writeup on Nike +iPod later.

So Week 6, done, onto Week 7 - 28-minute runs each day. Doable!