About 5 miles on the treadmill this morning while importing my work for today. This means taking a few quick breaks to check the FAX, answer my pages and enter a few things on the computer, but never long enough to bring my heart rate down much. Actually, it works out pretty well. The treadmill and I have a love-hate relationship. It allows me to get a run in on days when I otherwise wouldn't be able to. I use it when work is wild, roads are icy, or it's simply too darned cold to go out and run. But it is so BORING.
I have run through 3 high quality treadmills in my running lifetime. My current one is on it's last legs. The electronic display is gone, which is a blessing because I can't watch the miles and minutes in their unbearably slow march to the end of my workout. I guess at the pace, glance at my watch and just run until I think my time is up. Then I look at my watch again and am usually disappointed to find I still have 10 or 15 minutes to go. In those last desperate 10 or 15 minutes I start doing math equations or counting games in my head for a distraction. Sometimes I can inch the pace up little by little as I concentrate on counting by 7's to 490 or trying to figure out what my overtime pay minus taxes will be for the week. The power of distraction is an amazing thing, it has helped me through many rough patches in hundred milers. I think my treadmill running helps me hone that skill.
The guessing at mileage and pace would drive a lot of runners I know crazy. Runners tend to be sticklers for statistics. Each day they know exactly what pace they ran for exactly how many miles. They know all their PR's for all their training loops and have those loops measured to the tenth of a mile. I have the opposite problem. I put my watch away about three years ago and became a slow jogger who had no idea how far, how fast, or for what amount of time I had run and I just didn't care. It was very relaxing, I told everyone I had found running Nirvana. My injuries healed but, Boy did I get slow and out of shape! I found my watch and am wearing it again. I now realize I hadn't really found running Nirvana, I had just become lazy. So, now a days the treadmill runs are the only runs where I really don't know how far and at what pace I run.
Snow storm expected tonight into tomorrow so it may very well end up being another treadmill day tomorrow.
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