Hammer Strength

I wasn't going to put anything in the blog today as I am following the plan and today was scheduled to be an easy 45m run at 206-236w power.  Nothing very interesting there 😀!  But two things made today slightly unusual, so I figured doing a short blog entry wasn't so bad...  Firstly, although I had no pain in the run or walk home from the gym yesterday, in the late afternoon and in the evening, my right calf did not feel quite right.  Not exactly painful, or maybe very mild pain, but not quite right.  So that was a slight concern for today.  This morning I felt no pain, and the scheduled run, as mentioned above, was very straightforward.  I thought I would slow down or stop at the very first sign of discomfort but that I would attempt my standard run.  That would be starting slowly and building up to 11.3kmh on the treadmill for the run.  But the best laid plans...  And now we get to secondly...  When I got to the gym, all the treadmills were being used 😥!!!  I should have just done a Wattbike for ten or twenty minutes and then found a treadmill, as most people do not do long runs on the machines.  But the gym also has self-powered curved treadmills, called Hammer Strength.  As the plan was for an uncomplicated run, I thought I could just go for a 45m self-powered run for 45m.  And that is what I did!  But my goodness I was slow!!  My average pace was 7:11m/km which, even by my standards, is slow!  And yet that was as fast as I could go!  The average wattage was 182w which is well below the minimum in today's plan, but that's fine.  I found it really hard today and I am not sure why.  My first time using an unpowered treadmill?  Just a bit exhausted as it is the third day in a row?  Worry about the calf?  Laziness?  A combination of some or all of those reasons?  I don't know, but I am hoping I am back on a treadmill tomorrow and all is as normal.  I guess I am worried that today being unpowered was much more like a run outside.  Would I have been that slow and found it that hard outside?  I hope not, or the marathon is going to take very many hours!!

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