Running on the treadmill

Today was the first time I have run on a treadmill. I have used them in the past for warm ups, but mainly walked as I couldn't keep steady enough to run any distance on them. But, with two kids still out of school and no husband around to mind them of an evening I had to bite the bullet and just do it.

One of the benefits of running on a treadmill is that you can complete your workout in air-conditioned comfort. Over summer I have been running in 85F plus heat. It hasn't been fun nor has it been easy. With the treadmill though, I was not only running in air-conditioning but I was positioned under a fan! A down side is that it is rather boring as the view remains the same. For me today it was three people running on a treadmill facing me, three televisions on various channels and a fire extinguisher.

The goal was to run 4 miles. The first 30 minutes flew by as I watched all the flashing lights on the machine telling me how many calories I was burning, how fast I was running and how far I had run. I was impressed at how I could maintain the speed, and therefore my pace per minute. Normally when I run I know I run fast, then slow, then a little in between and so on. Also crossing roads, giving way to traffic and hills add to variance in speed. So running at 6.1 miles per minute – a 09.50 min mile pace – was pretty cool!!

At 3.1 miles I started to struggle a bit – not from the running, but from boredom. I really couldn't keep the motivation up to stay on the treadmill. I kept trying not to look at the mileage and tried to concentrate on the fire extinguisher and the televisions. It was hard, which is probably why I hit the red stop button at 3.92 miles. I think tomorrow when I head to the gym to attempt 5 miles on the treadmill I will need to take my IPod – which will be another first!