What I did not look like on my first treadmill run

My last trip on a treadmill? Forty-five seconds of sweaty stumbling, stopping, skipping, swearing misery that actually, according to my friend Jeff, turned me into a fire-breathing devil woman. (I'm still paying for his therapy.)

No, I didn't fall, but sometimes the threat is worse than the actual thing.

Except, of course, when it's the actual thing: 15 years ago I stood on a treadmill for one absent-minded split second as someone plugged it in. And then I was thrown across the room at 6:00/mile. Ouch.

Imagine my anxiety today when I decided to hit the treadmill at lunch. It's been weeks since I last ran, months since I've trained. Chances of me running on freezing rain: unlikely. While I've packed outdoor running clothes every day for work since October, I haven't peeled myself out of my office chair into the cold once. Oh, winter wussiness.

I must have looked I was approaching a lion's cage for the first time and walking in. The buttons were difficult to push, the moving-ground sensation took a bit to grasp, and let's just say my knuckles were white as I gripped the bar to steady myself.

I only let go after five minutes, when my arms started to hurt! Then I gripped hard with two fingers, then one on each hand. Finally: at 2 miles I ran hands free. No stumbles, zero trips and only one too-long stride. I think I'll do it again.

It wasn't a bad inaugural workout either: 4 miles @ 10:15, 8:20, 8:34, 9:00. The first mile wasn't fully slow... it took me several minutes to poke up the pace from 12-13:00!

So it begins: Pittsburgh, here I come!

That Settles It: I’d Rather be a Hamster

Thunderstorms were rolling through Kent when I headed to the rec. center this afternoon (I had been staying on the weather up and up all week; that’s why I went swimming yesterday), so I headed inside to run. It was my first time running on a treadmill. As you know, I have only ever gone flying off a treadmill.

My goal was to run a 10K around 8:30-9:00/mile, so I stepped on the machine, pressed the large “ON” button and chose the 10K option. Seems straight forward, right? It always does.

I’m running around 6.7 mph for close to a mile when the treadmill suddenly slows to walking pace. It had been my understanding that running machines with large buttons were intuitive and easy to use, so I blamed this gaffe on user error. I must have done something wrong. So, I start over with my 10K, enter my weight and begin running again. And the same thing happens. Then I just restarted the machine and ran on manual around 6-7 mph for 1.5 miles. But not without incident.

When I first started running on the machine, it felt a little strange having the ground moving beneath my feet. I couldn’t quite get comfortable with moving my arms, so I held on for dear life for the first couple of minutes. Then I let go and tried to allow myself to drift back enough for room to move. And then I stumbled. It wasn’t too bad a stumble, but loud enough that Jeff, who happened to be at the weight circuit behind me, jerked around and gave me the good old ‘L’ sign to the forehead. I kept hearing the word “loser” repeated for several minutes, but that may have just been in my head.

Until it happened again.

This time I definitely tripped over the clean air and the next time I stumbled on a stubbed toe. The third time, however, was the charm. I jumped off the treadmill, walked over to Jeff and swore for several minutes when I saw the sun had come out. So, I took my anger outside and ran the remaining 3.1 miles of my 10K in the beautiful weather.

It was really difficult to run at first: running feels different when the ground is just standing there, waiting to be traversed. But I took the run at a healthy pace (8-9 min./mile) and even considered whether I could sing the national anthem while I was running—but I sang “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” instead ;-)

My only regret was that I hadn’t started my run outside, but I was able to get my mind off the fact that I couldn’t manage to complete a task regularly performed by hamsters. Even on my second and third tries.

So, I thought it would be appropriate to share with you what I looked and felt like on the treadmill today. This video actually features the exact treadmill I was using at my rec. center in the exact location I ran this afternoon. I was not, however, wearing a squirrel costume.

Apparently, squirrels aren’t as adept as hamsters either.

Finding Rest and, Perhaps, a Treadmill

I’m getting sleepy… very, very sleepy. And as I sip my last cup of chamomile tea, I’m getting almost too enthusiastic about being tired enough to sleep a full night — despite the lousy excuse for a human being I was today.

Yes, I missed swimming again, but this time work got in the way (why am I saying this time?). Then I committed the ultimate sin when I came home: I plopped down on my uber-cozy bed for “just a couple of seconds.” Forty-five minutes later, when Neil came home, I woke up.

You see, when I was skipping lunch to finish a project, I promised myself I would go swimming at the end of the day. And then when I didn’t actually leave early and was driving home along OH-8, I looked longingly at our local bike path (now that has some delicious hills—notice I say “delicious” as I sit on my couch typing and drinking tea before going to bed) and promised myself I would go running this evening. But that nap wiped me out and it was getting dark and I had spent so much time counting excuses that next thing I knew I was just doing some weight training in the middle of my living room as Duke lost to VCU.

Tomorrow I will swim. And perhaps I will run too.

I know that I have sworn off the rec. center track, but I have considered getting a treadmill for my apartment. Initially, the drawbacks were a) carrying it up three flights of stairs when I bought it; b) carrying it down three flights of stairs when I move; and c) disturbing my neighbors. But my downstairs neighbors have recently become so obnoxious that Neil and I thought for a moment that Monday’s 3.6 earthquake was actually our neighbors wrestling again, so that (courtesy) is no longer a concern. We’ve also decided to stay put for one more year, and now I’m really just down to one grand excuse for not making the plunge.

Well, I guess there is one more thing. The big treadmill incident. Or was it an accident? Long story short: I was standing on a treadmill, wondering why it wouldn’t work, when someone decided to plug it into the wall when my attention was somewhere else. The thing zipped on so quickly that I was launched across the room. I imagine that it was far more entertaining for standers-by, but not so much for the person who could no longer stand… by. And I don’t think I’ve been on a treadmill ever since.

Perhaps by next winter I should get over that fear... or memory. While it was nice to get out in the sub-zero temperatures and trudge through the mounds of snow this winter, there are days when I just wouldn’t get out because of the weather. And removing that excuse would be great for my training regiment. It should pay on muggy summer days too. Besides, don’t those things give you some mean hills? I suppose it’s something to keep in mind.

For now, however, I have sleep on the mind. Last night was my first decent sleep in weeks, and I’ve been limiting my tea to all-herbal, all the time (FYI: that tea from Starbucks yesterday was decaf too; I’ve quit the Lipton green from work all together. Now, if I could only quit that whole “work” thing… oop, who said that?). In fact, I’m just polishing off this cup of chamomile and looking forward to some rest.