Making Friends With My New Enemy

I was so excited when I ordered a new treadmill in November. With my motivation dwindling in the cold, dark winter mornings, I was sure this was my new answer for those weekday runs. It had been almost a year since I'd been on a treadmill. I used to crank out a few miles on the treadmill all the time. I remember making that transition from treadmill to outside. Wow, outside was so hard compared to the treadmill.

Yes, I was actually excited at the idea of a treadmill. The idea that I could get back to watching TV on a few mid-week runs, I could sing along to my music, make funny arm motions to dance along to the music and not have anyone (other than my dogs) looking at me like I was a crazy person. I didn't have to worry if we just got a ton of snow and the roads were covered in ice. My husband would be happy because I wouldn't be running outside at 5 AM in the dark anymore. I'd get in some easy runs during the week to keep myself sane and I'd still have my weekends to run outside - sounded like the perfect balance.

The first run on the treadmill felt hard. Why was a run on a treadmill at a 10:00 minute pace and 1% incline feeling difficult? That feels really easy to me outside these days. I totally expected the treadmill to feel easier than outside - it used to. Also, I'm pretty sure that little flashing track thing is broken. There's no way that thing moves that slow, maybe the clock is broken too. I didn't know seconds and minutes moved by so slowly.

After those first couple of treadmill runs, I figured I just needed to get used to it again. Maybe my form was different. Maybe that's why it felt difficult. Maybe it was the shoes I was wearing. I kept switching the different ones I have in my rotation. Maybe I was starting too fast. Maybe I start slower outside than I realized and need a longer warm up. Tried that. Why does stuff just seem to hurt when I'm on the treadmill? I never have pain outside.

Maybe it was just because it felt so boring. OK, new plan. I'll use the treadmill for speed workouts and just tough out those couple of other easy runs that feel boring. Perhaps that will help - I don't really care that much about speed, but hey, if it makes these treadmill runs more exciting and I get a little faster in the process, that can't be a bad thing. I printed out a handy little treadmill pace converter because doing the math in my head wasn't really working out very well. I had a new plan and once/week I'd try some speed workouts.

It made the runs more exciting. I actually felt good during the run, it was no longer boring and I felt like I was actually accomplishing something. I went about it the correct way - 1 mile warm up, some intervals with recovery and then a cool down. Looking back, I may have been doing the half mile intervals a little too fast.

But, the treadmill and I still aren't friends. I've only run once this week. Something I'm doing when running on the treadmill is causing my hip to hurt. I stopped doing the speed stuff, that had to be it, but it still hurts after I finish the run. When I run outside, I have no pain and no pain in the days following. It is only the treadmill. Hoping to not make this an actual issue, I decided to take it easy this week and hope it goes away. I really want to make this relationship work - hopefully a short break will make us grow fonder.

Until then, I'll just keep being a royal bitch because I'm stressed out at work, I can't run, and I'll whine about it all on a public blog.

**I've been tagged by two people - that post coming soon...I have a couple others half written too. I just felt like complaining today.