Morning Turkey Trot

Before the turkey is the run. Or at least that's my mentality, I need an excuse to pig out. But its kinda a tradition, I used to do the Turkey trot in Manchester except with all the travel I feel the need to get more than 4 hours of sleep. . So here's todays run. It was nice, pleasant with some slight hils, nothing extravagant but a good time.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3341629

I'll be lazy today for y'all as well as give a shout to my route tracker.

Also this runs in Connecticut, so a slightly different locale than normal

Grok Sprints

Since I'm stuck on a treadmill here, due to the excellent(sic) location here at night, I've been getting creative in the runs, mainly to make it interesting. As I've said before, needlessly, running on a treadmill gets boring. This all brings me to tonights workout, sprints...barefoot. I figure even though its on a treadmill, I can still call them Grok Sprints in spirit.

The workout's pretty simple, I do a minute at 4 mph, then the next at 10mph; one at 4 then one at 10.5, ramping to the max speed. Following that, I just go until I'm tired and feel like I'm done. Pretty simple, but it turned into a solid 30 minute workout, 3.2 miles down and its great.

Treadmill review: Matrix T5x

As promised; upon day 2 on the treadmill here I'm writing a review. By day 2, I'm referring to the second day of many in a row because the suns going down to early here, so I've been on this treadmill before and know the ins and outs. I'm currently at the Staybridge Suites in Corpus Christi and they have the Matrix T5x treadmill.

The T5x is a newer treadmill, at least based upon my recent hotel experience, and the one here still has the feel of a newer piece of equipment. The link above shows the stats on it, basically standard for any treadmill nowadays, 0-15% grade and 0-12mph, nothing to exciting. The unit here has a very tight belt, and a stable deck so there's not a lot of rattle when I'm running on it flat or while running and adjusting the height. The user interface is a little confusing at first but you can navigate the options easily.

For my test I covered two workouts, the first was a longer run/jog to wake my body up that I usually do on Monday and then a speed workout the second day, both of which cover most of the functionality.

Pros

• The belt didn't slip at all during the long run, or the speed workout(1 min walk, 1 min 9.5mph+ and repeat 15 times). For me this is a huge plus because I run heavy when I get tired
• Speed adjustment can be keyed in on the keypad by your right hand
• Comfortable run, the deck went up and down easily without much noise.

Cons

• The E-Stop button is among the worst placed, it's dead center of the heart rate guard, so when you speed up sometimes you'll bump it. I did this once in the long run
• If you do not change the time BEFORE you start your workout, you're stuck at a sudden shut-down at 20 minutes, this may have a fix but I haven't found the command yet.

Grade: B - that estop is really annoying
Overall though it was a pleasant run, I'd still prefer to be outside but the hours I'm working now are not encouraging it so I'm going to be on this puppy for a while.

Daylight Savings

I woke up this morning for the start of my yearly attempt to run in the morning during winter because I can go in a little later and hopefully avoid the treadmill. I did a nice primal workout consisting of sprints and felt great, only 5 for 30 seconds and 5 more for a minute, so more middle distance speed work, but still speed work and felt great. So daylight savings started out well....

Unfortunately I forgot that the sun goes down earlier, the same yearly defeat that place me on the treadmill tonight. Usually I'd venture out but there have been some local law enforcement problems near the hotel I'm staying at so it looks like it's treadmill time. In honor of every runners hated/loved device I'm going to put a few posts on hotel chains and which running aids they have; because I'm picky. So that'll be the theme as well as how to get a good run without being bored; which thanks to baseball I was able to put a solid 5 miles in without a problem.