A good excuse

I have been trying to abide by the "no excuses" principle lately but when I awoke this morning I knew that my regular run was out of the question. It was raining and while I don't mind running in the rain, I do mind (and fear) the risk of electrocution. We are in the height of thunderstorm season and have been pummeled by several strong storms lately. A quick look at the radar told me that I would be running right in between two big storms. Would I have been alright? Maybe, but this is not the kind of thing I want to play around with.

Still determined to get in a run, I was left with only one option: the treadmill. Which I have used exactly once before. So at the end of the day I went to the machine and dutifully got on. I was bored about 2 minutes in so I started fiddling with the controls.

I decreased the incline to 0% (oh! So this is what it feels like to run on flat ground) and then slowly started upping the speed into the uncomfortable range. Despite the fact that I spent the next 30 minutes just looking at myself (the gym has a wall of mirrors) I was actually able to maintain a 5 mile/hour speed most of the time.

In the end, I average a pace of 12:46 min/mile and felt that I had left everything I had on that dreaded treadmill. BUT, I am coming to realize that the treadmill may be a useful tool in the future in terms of learning to run faster.