3 miles: personal record!

You may have seen this on Twitter, but I almost forgot to post here that I did my 3 mile training walk last night in 47:53 - a personal record! That is approximately a 16 minute mile. I've been struggling with motivation lately so I decided to challenge myself with trying to do 3 miles in under 50 minutes. I have to keep the treadmill visits fresh, ya know?

Now that it's dark and cold outside, I've been hitting the treadmill during the week. I have a few tips to keeping it fresh:

- Do intervals. Either way you do it, either by distance or time. Choose an increment to go as hard and as fast as you can then do a recovery interval for a bit longer time than the first segment. (ex: 1/4 mile at 4 mph then 1/2 mile at 3.5)

- Change machines mid-way through your walk/run. I know it sounds silly to get off a machine, wipe it down, then move to the other side of the room, but the change of perspective may help your, "oh this is so boring" thoughts.

- Cover the display and only look at it after a pre-determined time. After a commercial break, for example. Or every two songs.

- Think of your walk/run as smaller segments. When I hit 1/2 a mile on a 3 mile walk, I am 1/6 of the way through. 1 mile is a third. Before you know it you'll be half way through, then you'll only have a quarter mile left.

- Make mental lists about what you have to to that day/evening, the next day, the coming weekend.

- And of course, set a time limit and finish your mileage before that set time. It keeps you focused on an end goal and the challenge gives you something to think about besides how boring the treadmill is.

Tomorrow I am attempting 4 miles. I may try to go outside on a well lit road with a bike path/sidewalk - we'll see how I feel!

Do you have tips for race training indoors? Share them below!