Run 35, 2008

Ran a 6:30 pace for 7 km in the indoor track today (45 minutes and 31 seconds). I did not have a great run as I felt the burn and had a burning “shin splinty” feeling in my left leg so I had to walk it off, stop and stretch it out a little. After that I hit the gym for a brief period and used a lifefitness treadmill to do a fitness test. I’ve never used it before, so I chose the shortest possible test (5 minutes) and ran 4.5 MPH (an arbitrary choice of speed) and the machine inclined 5 degrees after 1 minute. Then it checked my pulse (I was not breathing very hard as this was not even an effort for me it was so easy). Nevertheless, my pulse showed 163, my VO2 Max was 32.4 which according to the machine was below average. There were no units that I could see. I had chosen the male category and also I had to input my weight 188 lbs and age 55.

Clearly, the machine is full of it. But I expected that. I really don’t think if you took a random sampling of even just 100 men my age that I would score below average. I may be wrong but I’ll bet not 80 of those men could chase me down as I ran 17 km without hardly breaking a sweat. Maybe I’m exaggerating and maybe I’m not. Anyway, I had fun trying it. I just wish it had said “My God you’re GREAT!” instead of “below average”. Oh well. Nothing for it but to keep running.

After that I floated in the water for a bit, and dangled my sore ankle in the hot pools jets for a while. It seems to be gradually getting better. I think the hot jets of water help the soreness heal up.