7 reasons to stop hating the treadmill

at least I can watch the muscle heads at my gym

Ah, The good 'ol dreadmill treadmill.

Many of us have a hate-hate relationship with it.

Some more than others.  I myself have grown to tolerate the treadmill. I will admit that it's easier to deal with it when runs are 6 miles and under but I've used it to run up to 14.

Not everyone hates the treadmill. I mean powerhouse runners and bloggers like EMZ runs on one and even did her own 24 hour treadmill fundraiser on one!  Lesley from Racing It Off also often turns to tread work without mention of dread.  She clocks some serious miles on it too!

Today I woke up with a groan at the thought of hopping on the treadmill… So on the heels of yesterday's post about being positive I started to talk to myself about all the good things about the good 'ol tread.

So in honor of national treadmill day… (never heard of national  treadmill day? Well that's because I made it up…)

I'm listing ten seven (I couldn't come up with ten) reasons why we should stop hating the treadmill:

1. Climate control. No ice, no rain, no snow, no heat wave, no cold weather gear, no coming home and waiting for your thighs to defrost or cursing the sunscreen that's sweated into your eyes… Just go time.
2. Reality television. It's so much harder to watch an episode of the Jersey Shore running thru a park… well. unless your park is in the middle of Jersey (like mine) where you might sight a Snookie or two… 
3. A handy dandy dash board.  No figuring out where to carry your Gu, hydration, music, towel, iPhone, uh. remote control for reason number 2 - treads have all kinds of cup holders to stash your crap.  And talking about crap...
4. Potty perfect.  Gu hit your tummy hard? Too much pre-run hydrating? Running so hard you feel like puking? Never fear, a potty is near!
5. No dogs, children or sidewalk cracks to trip you up.  On my run the other day thru the hood, I made the mistake of running by a middle school just as the tweens were getting out. Oh the horror. Weaving in and out of walls of kids with heads buried in their cool smart phones was a great time if you like running a 15 minute mile. Also, I'm good for catching every little bump in the road just at the right spot to trip. 
6. Mindless Miles.  It's not to say they aren't worthy or important miles. Sometimes it's just a relief to run without thinking of anything. I can blast my music and truly tune out. When I'm running outside I'm on heightened alert for above mentioned dogs and sidewalk cracks, plus cars, bikers, predators and other things that can harm ya.  I like that I can completely zone out.
7. Hill and speed control. Wanna run up hill - no need to go out and find one! That's so old school. Incline it up, baby!  Want to know what it feels like to run a 5 min. mile? - Set it to 12.0 and have at it. Good luck. Modern technology! I do like challenging myself to running faster and faster on the tread.

So what's your thoughts on our poor, often hated friend the treadmill? Love him or hate him? 

What's your favorite thing about the tread? Your least favorite?

XO

Jen

When you feel more like running away than actually running...

I like this quote

Back to life, back to reality... back to freezing temps and snow.

I have returned to Jersey and hopefully back to being on track.

And, I have good news and I have bad news.

Between all the yucky weather here in Jersey and being away for business for a week - my training is getting all out of whack. I'm a play by the rules gal, so being off course is tricky for me.

So, the bad news, I've been "off" the last week or so. I've not done my "official" long runs in two weeks (two weeks ago because it snowed and I did 6 miles in lieu of 10, and this past Sunday where I did 7 miles in lieu of 14... eeks.)

This past Sunday's long run was just too tough to squeeze the whole thing in. I made a choice to go out on Saturday night and have fun with friends, rendering me a nice little hangover for Sunday morning. I am happy that I got 7 miles in at least. The other piece to my decision in not doing the full 14, is, it's over 3 hours of running for me and would not only cut out half the morning but it would leave me pretty beat for the rest of the day. I was away in Cali with a friend and we had a full day planned - I didn't want to screw up someone else's time because I would want to nap and ice down all afternoon.

To boot, I also ran less than I was prescribed for the entire week. Bleh.

I guess that's the bad news. I am feeling behind in training and fighting feelings of failure and incompleteness.  These feelings are making me feel a little down and unmotivated - they are trying to eat away at my confidence and have me questioning my decision on marathon training - which ultimately makes me question the whole marathon decision from the get go.

Which has always been my problem.  The extremes. I'm a 100% or nothing. I've always been black or white. On or off. I've come a long way in navigating this issue in my diet - I no longer feel like it's gotta be a plain salad or a cheeseburger deluxe - I can find a happy medium, a balance. It's a lot of the reason why I've finally found some success in weight loss. I can roll with the food punches a little easier now.

Now I just have to do the same with running and even training.

The irony - I'm not that far behind in training (in fact I started training early to give myself wiggle room in case of injury/illness/or life). I'm not as "off" as I feel in the grand scheme of things. It's my own internal criticisms I have to face down and get past.

So, the good news - I am fighting those feelings and trying to work thru them rather than surrender. I realize that no one is perfect and my success lies in working thru tough times and accepting that sometimes things will be a little off. Life happens. One or even two crappy weeks of half training doesn't mean I give up.

And despite the obstacles, I did do something this week. I could've blown off Sunday all together but I didn't - I did seven miles which is seven more than I would've done at one time in my life. My first instinct was to actually not do anything. Paralyzed by the thought of not being able to do the full 14, I really was going to skip the whole thing until I thought it out. 7 is better than nothing - in fact just one mile would've been better than nothing...

A few other days where I had meetings and could only do a few miles (like Monday I could only squeeze in 2 instead of the 3) is also good news. Again, I didn't just give up, I found a way to do something. I am pleased that I'm hanging in there and still finding a way to run some miles even if it's not as many as "I should". I'm working thru the "all or nothing" mentality that has paralyzed me in the past.

Now lets not kid ourselves, it's a slippery slope of making excuses and patting yourself on the back for "at least doing something," it's going to be a struggle for me - to keep balance, keep on course and remain in the game.

I guess I can take only take it one day at a time. Today I did four miles - I would've liked to do more but I have a crap load of stuff to do and I had to sacrifice a few miles. Maybe tomorrow I'll run more. I gotta get a 12 mile long run in tomorrow or Saturday, despite another storm and freezing temps coming... it may have to be long run on a treadmill or outside or a combo of both.

Either way, I'm learning how to not throw in the towel so quickly. Not to assume an imperfect week means that I'm not "good enough" - it just means I might have to work harder somewhere else.

XO
Jen

PS: make sure to check out this super giveaway at Racing It Off for a pair of "golite" running pants. They look awesome: GIVE AWAY

Making peace with the treadmill

Today was another 6 miles on the treadmill - I could've bundled up but decided against it. Now that it's below freezing my crappy, half-assed, outdoor gear isn't going to cut it so I'm counting down the days to Christmas for when I get my under armour - pretty sure that I'm getting this because I literally told my hubby that's what I want, here is where you can get it and HERE IS A COUPON for it.  So if I get a pair of earrings or some perfume, well. I will try not to be a total biotch and will try to be totally appreciative of "the thought" but I'll be upset to be without the gear.

Anyhoo. Today was a successful six miles on the treadmill. I count them successful not because they were the speediest - (I think it worked out to an 11:30 pace) but because I didn't totally hate every minute of it. In fact, I enjoyed it.  

I figured out the secret... I have to slow down. Yep. Slow down.

When I'm outside I run faster for whatever reason, I do not clock watch, when I'm feeling good I pick up the pace when I'm pushing too hard I slow down - it's all intuitive.  

On the treadmill, I'm trying to figure it out. I WANT to run fast - especially because my thinking is - A) I should be faster, B) The faster I am, the quicker I can get off the f'in dreadmill and C) I want to be faster. 

The great thing about cyber hanging out with all of you elite athletes is I learn a ton, I get tremendous inspiration, I see what I wanna be when "I grow up." The downside is - I can't help but feel like a slug when you people are smashing 26.2 in 3:20's - or I see your drills of 7 & 8 min miles or your warm ups as my best effort (around 10 min mi.) I am competitive and apparently, a closet athlete (who freakin' knew) and I want to be awesomely impressive with speed  - which I am. For me.  I have to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day - 10 months ago I never ran more than a minute in my life and that minute was run around a power walk of 4.0 - so I've come a long, long way. And that's something to be happy about.

Back to the treadmill, so in the past I would really push myself to run at a 6.0 because I wanted to go fast and I felt like I could handle it. I could for a mile or two but when I have to run for 6 miles, what happens at that speed is that I get SUPER HOT (not in a good way like red face, frizzy sweaty, gonna die way) and I guess I use a lot of steam - so by the time 3 miles roll around, I'm spent, cranky, hating life and not motivated to continue, I have to dramatically slow down anyway and the great pace is killed anyway. It just wasn't working for me. Part of the problem was, yes, it's more boring but I also always feel overworked. So today I decided to slow down and now worry about it. I ran at 5.0 - I would inch up to 5.5 and 6.0 for short spells here and there but many of the miles (especially the first 3) were right around 5.0... I still worked up a sweat, it still was effort but I wasn't dying or hating life. So I guess that's the way to go for me.

I'm going on a girls trip for two days - probably won't be around until Saturday, will let you know how that long run of 13 miles goes! (I'm considering it my own mini 1/2 marathon...) 

XO

Jen

day 32 - 51 days to go - I ran four freakin' miles!

Yay!  Four mile day -- I did it!!  "High fives" people... I fricken fracken ran four miles!

My hip is a little achey and I feel a little stiff but I'm still standing.  It wasn't the quickest time anyone has ever run four miles in -- towards the 3 mile & 3 1/2 mile points I definitely was running less quick but at the end of it all, it took me 1:02:40 to run those four miles.  it works out to about 3.8 mph - but I am quite OK with that because about a month ago if you told me I was going to even do Disco Abs for an hour, I would've told you you were nuts.

And another proud moment:  I ran for as long as I ever had.  Last week I ran for fifteen minutes straight - today, 22 minutes!  I ran for 22 minutes before walking for a few, to sip some water and wipe my brow!  Woo.  And then I ran for ten minutes, 11 minutes and a few series of five minutes and I think total running time was around 48-50 mins -- lost track of it -- those little Indians dancing around the fire, roasting marshmallows and singing "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas - around 50 mins began to distract me.  (This was a hallucination.   I think...)

I did learn this about the treadmills at my gym that I never thought I would have a reason to know or care about, that kind of sucks.  There's a 60 minute max.  So at 60 minutes the treadmill automatically goes into "cool down mode."  You could imagine my dismay when I was less than a quarter of a mile away to the big four goal at 1hr, with power song blasting,  Indians dancing, sweat dripping, grin a spreading across my face and the freakin' treadmill goes from 4.4 down to 3.1 and loses my incline.  GRRRR.  REALLY?  I mean REALLY!?  Now is the time, the friggen machine decides I've worked out long enough?  I was able to up the speed and reset the incline but every one minute after 60 mins - it would return back to cool down.  Thank God I was done at 2 mins and 40 into the cool down because at 65 mins the thing completely stops.

So, tomato faced and fresh off the treadmill, I addressed it with the gym guys who looked at me like I was nuts.  Finally they fiddled with the thing and discovered that it was indeed preset for a 60 min. max.  "Huh, no one ever told us about this before."  they offered no solution, but did think it was cool that I was training for a 1/2 marathon.  The twenty year old, buff trainer said that he too was a runner but had never braved anything more than a 5K up to now!

Well, HA.  Take that world.  20 year old trainer - too scared to take on a half marathon... not ME! :)

Guess I'll have to be pro-active once I reach an hour and immediately re-start -up.  I'll take the one hour mark as my "walk for a minute time" and get on with it.  Who would've thunk I'd ever have such problems...

XO

Jen