When I started running I thought it would just be my body getting a work out, not my brain. It looks like I was wrong though. Yesterday I spent 10 minutes multiplying and dividing before I even put my trainers on.

Realising that I had less than six weeks until my 10k and not wanting to cause myself an injury, I went onto the Runner’s World Smart Coach. You enter information such as how far your race is, how many weeks away and how much you run and it calculates a schedule for you. Brilliant I thought.

Yesterday it prescribed “2 miles @11.58”. Hmmm, I though!

After investigation the @11.58 turned out to be the pace – the time it takes to do a mile. I’ve run 3 miles in 30 minutes so obviously this means slowing down – but how much?

A problem emerged – I was planning to run on the treadmill which is set to KM, not miles. Plus the speed settings on the treadmill are km per hour – not minutes per km (sounds very similar but very confusing).

So, if you’re interested, this is the incredibly boring way that I figured out how to set the treadmill to the correct speed:

11.58 is pretty much 12, so let’s use 12 and rough maths.
2 miles x 12 minues each = 24 minutes
2 miles = 3.2km
24min/ 3.2km = 7.5 mins per km
7.5min per km = 8km per hour

So I set the treadmill to 8 and plodded along – what do you know it took me 24 minutes to cover 3.2km. Keeping the right pace on the road this weekend may prove a lot harder.