Daily discoveries

Although it has been a number of months since I've returned to running I'm still finding about new things every day. I wrote yesterday about what I recently learned about trail shoes and I came across a couple of other things as well. My first discovery was that my normal pace on the road is about 25 seconds/mile faster than what seemed to be an equal effort on the treadmill. I know my street pace is correct because I can quantify it by dividing duration by distance using a stopwatch and Google Earth's path ruler. Both tools are close to 100% accurate so I consider that to be my pace of record. My Sportband, when calibrated, closely correlates to this distance and pace number.

The big question is whether the Sportband works as accurately with treadmill running as it does on the street. My guess is that it does because the only variable is whether the treadmill motor throws off enough EMI to interfere with the transmission between the Nike+ chip and the Sportband. If that were the case then the Sportband readings would be inconsistent as the level of EMI interference varies due to positioning changes between the Sportband and chip during a run. My conclusion is that the difference in pace has to do with stride length. My stride is probably shorter on the treadmill because I'm conscious of the possibility of over-running the speed of the tread,

My second discovery was that the Core workout, despite its low impact, seems to generate an impressive amount of energy. This makes it a great warm up for a run and a nightmare when you do it shortly before you go to bed. Forget sleeping for a while. I learned this Sunday night as I stared at the clock for two hours waiting to drop off.

Finally, I read yesterday that replenishing glycogen within 15 minutes after exercise significantly helps recovery and benefits your next day's workout. There seems to be no end of new things to discover about a seemingly simple sport.