Time for another 10k Strength Builder treadmill workout tonight. My legs still felt a little stiff from a tough Friday, Saturday, Sunday, so I decided to back off slightly from last week’s base pace and maximum speed and perform the workout at a more moderate intensity.
If you’re as fast as a couple of runners in the Strength Builder DVD, each six minute interval will be equivalent to a mile repeat (or more) on the track. Running 5 of these with just 90 seconds recovery is definitely a challenge and by the third one my legs always begin to feel fatigued. You really have to focus, maintain your form (“lift those knees and use those arms” as Coach Troy keeps barking at you) and gut it out to the end of the workout.
10k Strength Builder is never an easy 50 minute workout, but you step off the treadmill knowing you’ll be a better runner for making the effort. I like to do these high intensity treadmill workouts on a Wednesday evening if possible, by which time I’ve usually recovered from the previous weekend’s long run. It also gives me a couple of recovery days before any races I may be doing on the upcoming weekend.
Tonight was also a test for yet another pair of new shoes which I’ve been trying to track down since the end of October 2007! Finally, after months of online searching, hassling my local running store, emailing the folks at Brooks and checking the eBay listings, I found a pair on Zappos.com. Actually, the challenge wasn’t finding a store that sold the shoe, it was finding a store that carried the ST3 in my size (US 9.5).
The shopping experience at Zappos was a great one – I ordered around 8pm on Friday evening and immediately received a confirmation email (always a good sign!). At time of checkout I’d chosen their FREE SHIPPING offer, which they quote as a 4-5 business day turnaround – not too bad at all – but later that night I received another email informing me the order had been upgraded to FREE OVERNIGHT delivery at no extra charge. Great news! Sure enough, the good old UPS man delivered the new shoes on Monday and for a couple of days I’ve been itching to try them on a faster run. Tonight was the night to put them to the test…
I’ll be wearing the ST3’s in the Shamrock Marathon on March 16th and hope they can assist me to a good race as they have in previous years. You can read more about the ST3 and why it’s my shoe of choice for longer distance races in some of my older posts.
One last thing, I also received 6% cash back on my purchase by shopping at Zappos.com through the excellent eBates system. If you’re not familiar with the eBates web site, it’s basically an easy way to earn cash back on any online purchases you make. Zappos is just one of hundreds of first class merchants participating in the program who all offer varying rates of cash back incentives.
You can also earn money by referring friends and family to their site (full details can be found here). I’ve been an eBates member since 2007 and have earned almost $150 in cash back and referrals – that’s almost 2 pair of running shoes! Click here if you’d like to join or if you have any questions about the eBates program feel free to send me an email (steve dot speirs at gmail dot com).
Happy Miles and Happy Shopping!
–Steve
Nice work finding the shoes. I’ve only used Zappo’s once (for my Garmin 305) and it was a great experience.
I was at the indoor track last night for my mile repeats. They went pretty well, and I didn’t even really mind running indoors too much for a change.
As long as you know what size and model you’re looking for, Zappos are great. Can’t fault the service.
How did the mile repeats go Blaine?