Treadmill run.

I didn't take any pictures because I'm lame. Feel free to hate me.

I've been doing a lot of treadmill running recently. For a while it's because I was traveling and treadmill running is easiest when you're on the road. (Not the touristy type of traveling though, because then I would highly recommend running outside) And for a while when I wasn't traveling, I was just being lazy. (I live in an area that isn't super safe for runners, so I usually drive somewhere else to run)

Anyway, I think with the amount of treadmill action I was seeing (Oh baby), my mind was numbed to how awful it can be. Don't get me wrong - there are some great perks to the t-mill. Once you drown out the screaming in your head. However, after getting in a couple runs outside and then going back to the treadmill, all I can say is eugh eugh eugh eugh.

Let's start with the positive: I love (to a certain extent) being able to control the pace. It allows me to do something that sort of resembles speedwork. I don't know anything about pacing (I haven't run very many races, so I don't know what 5k, 10k, etc paces are for me) and I don't think I've run enough to judge effort (Is this 70% max effort? Or only 68%?), so my version of speedwork is just to run for a certain distance at a pace faster than I would normally choose. Seems simple enough to me. And I love that the treadmill has everything laid out in front of me.

Paradoxically, the thing I hate about running on the t-mizzle is that...everything is laid out in front of me.

I still have HOW MANY MILES LEFT????

And am I the only one that feels this way, or does it seem like it takes a lot more effort to run at the same pace (or in my case, a slower pace) on the hamster wheel than it does outside?

It just gets depressing. I hate looking at the display and feeling like I'm stuck in the land of slugs. (One of my classmates in college - seriously, guys, college - once called me a slug. And slugs aren't exactly quick. So I thought they were appropriate for this description. And yes, he called me this after he already knew I ran/hobbled/crawled/log-rolled a marathon. I don't get it.)

Since I'm not usually much faster than slugs anyway, I won't talk hard numbers. But let's just say that my warmup mile outside with a hill was at a pace that would be hard to maintain on the dreadmill. My overall pace for my run outside (which I'm choosing to consider a tempo :P) was about 1:30 min/mile faster than I usually do inside.

Is this all in my head? Or is there something about treadmills that messes with pace? I've heard that they're technically supposed to be easier than running outside, so I set the incline at 1.0% to help negate that. Is it because I'm expecting it to be hard that makes it difficult? Or is it because I can watch every 0.001 mile tick away?

Anyone else out there experiencing the same thing? Bueller? Bueller?

(By the way, today I'm thankful for my library card. My broke a** college grad butt can't afford my book addiction. Hollaaaaaa free books!!)

High-altitude running.

I know I was trying for the whole write-a-post-once-a-week thing. But that obviously failed.

New March goal: blog more.

Okay. Glad I got that out of my system.

Anyway, like I mentioned in my last post, I went to Denver to visit some friends. I was a little nervous about running there. I have lived at sea level for my entire life so traveling to 6000 feet is always an interesting experience. When I visited last year (during one of my many breaks from running), I couldn't even get through a single mile. Completely pathetic.

So I went into this run with only a mileage goal in mind and ZERO expectations about pace, how I would feel, whether or not I would pass out and scrape my face on the treadmill belt, etc.

There is a gym in the apartment complex where I stayed, and what should have been a 2 minute walk took literally 10 minutes. It was basically a blizzard outside. (or at least that's what it was in my Californian mind) I was almost up to my knees in powder and there were crazy gusts of wind coming right at me. I can't breathe when wind is blowing on my face (apparently babies will hold their breathe when air is blown on their faces - I guess I never grew out of that?), so I pretty much had to walk backwards the entire way. I couldn't find the sidewalk and almost killed myself on some curbs, so I decided to walk in the street. Talk about a really easy way to get hit by a car. But I survived. I guess natural selection doesn't always work.

My view while running. This was the shallow end of the snow.

I'm going to preface what I'm about to say with a little explanation about my personality. I am the kind of person that will do exactly what I set out to do. I (usually) have very high expectations, so the fact that I don't go beyond what I originally planned is (usually) not a problem. But if I set a goal, no matter how easy or painful, I will do it, and not any more or less.

When I started running, I had decided to run 1 mile and take a 0.25 mile walk break, and repeat that until I finished my miles. When I got close to 1 mile, I realized that I actually felt really good (compared to how I felt last time I attempted to run in the Land of No Oxygen). So I decided to go a little bit further until I didn't feel quite as good. Straying from my original plan is fairly contrary to how I normally operate, but I decided to go with the flow.

On the next run, I decided to keep up the pattern from the first run. But by the time I got to the point where I took a walk break on the previous run, I realized that I was still feeling all right - so why not keep going? It was scary and exhilarating, but since I decided that I didn't have a good reason to stop, I didn't stop. And then on the next run, I pushed a little farther. And on the next one, I pushed a little farther. I may have pretended that I was Shalane Flanagan running a marathon...but you gotta do what you gotta do to get through it, right?? I can't be the only one who does this. It helped me destroy the (boring) treadmill runs and I walked away feeling like a badass.

Anyway, so this post is about the little voice in your head that says you can do it. It's the little voice that says, "Why not?" And it's the little voice that is probably a heck of a lot quieter than the loud, obnoxious part of your brain that tells you to play it safe, to stop when it hurts, and to be comfortable. Sometimes you just need to listen to the little voice that tells you to keep going. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own heads and we don't stop to look at the situation as it really is. I think sometimes, and this applies to more than just running, we need to take a step back and look at our reality, instead of our perceptions, and make decisions based on the current situation and not what we think or want it to be.

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Do you live where it snows? (Pretty much anywhere that isn't California or Florida...)

What do you do to beat boredom on the 'mill? I stare at one spot in front of me and focus on my music, my posture, and my breathing. I really wish I could watch TV on the treadmill, but for some reason I just can't focus on the TV and run at the same time.

Greetings from the Mile-High City!!

Apparently I only blog once a week. I'm working on making that better. We'll see. Maybe it will happen. Maybe not.

Anyway, for some reason I decided it would be a good idea to go from this...

 ...and this...

...to this. Hello, Denver!!

As a born-and-raised California girl, I can say with absolute certainty that I am freezing my cojones (if I had any...) off. It's like a giant slushie outside. But significantly less tasty and less fun. (Although I don't mind admiring the snow when I'm snuggled up under the blankets with a hot cup of coffee... :)

Anyway, some pretty crappy personal things have happened in that past day and I was starting to get really worked up over it. I decided hit the treadmill (no way was I going outside!!) not because I thought it would make me feel better, but because I decided that I need to step up my training and be a little more serious about it. Yes, I guess I'm technically coming back from an injury, but I think that having an injured mentality is holding me back. (Or maybe I've been watching too much Biggest Loser and I'm imagining what Jillian would yell at me?? I have very mixed feelings about the BL by the way. Maybe I'll talk about it in another post.) 

As I was running, I was pondering what I would write for this post. What am I grateful for today? I was so grumpy, I couldn't think of anything. Zilch. Nada.

I was really starting to let the crappy personal things get to me. But I always underestimate the transforming power of running. Combined with a few encouraging texts from my friend L, I was beginning to see how the bad things that are outside of my control shouldn't define me. I won't pretend that I'm an island and the things I say and do should have no impact on others, just like the things that others say and do should have no impact on me. But who I am as a person, what I choose to believe, to stand up for, and to fight for are completely up to me. And while I can't change some situations (such as the one I was in earlier today), I can change the way I perceive and the way I react to them. And sometimes that makes all the difference.

Perspective is an incredibly powerful tool. The difference between being in a rut and in a groove is how you see it. So today, I am grateful for my friends and the treadmill that both help me see things in a different light.

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What are you grateful for today?