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