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After a busy day of work yesterday, I was more than ready to head to the fitness center and kick my butt with some intervals.

The fitness center where I live is free for residents, which is awesome, but the equipment isn't the best. It's very old and sometimes I think the treadmills are going to fall apart when I run fast on them. But they get the job done, and I've gotten used to working out on them.

Yesterday, when I climbed onto my normal treadmill, something looked a little different.

It looked a little bigger and a little more sturdy than the machine I normally use.

Then I noticed there was jack to plug in an iPod and all sorts of fancy new things on the display screen. I realized my landlords had sprung for a new treadmill!

Wheee!!!

The new treadmill was awesome. It wasn't obnoxiously loud when I turned up the speed. The iPod jack not only let you control the music through the control panel on the machine, but it also charged your iPod. And there were a ton of new program options, including one for speed intervals.

The speed intervals option was a new-to-me function that let you pre-program your easy speed and your hard speed. Then when you wanted to switch, you just pushed the interval button and the treadmill sped up or slowed down to your desired speed. No more mashing the mph button multiple times until it got to the speed I was looking for.

It was awesome!

The intervals themselves were a struggle. I'm still trying to find the best pace so I can finish the intervals strong, but still feel like I pushed it. I tend to be overly ambitious and start at a way-too-fast pace and then need to slow down after the third repeat.

I think by the end of the workout I finally found something that worked:
2:30 on a 7.3 pace followed by 1:30 at an easy pace. I'm still experimenting with an easy pace, but I think I've nailed down the fast pace.

It was a good workout and I was covered in sweat by the time I was finished. I left the gym feeling very accomplished and I look forward to playing around on the new treadmill some more.

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