Treadmill Meditation

A few days now before the Pineland Farms 50k run, and I did my last effort to speak of in an 87 minute fartlek run yesterday, mostly on the mud flats next to the Ramapo river, but also climbing up to the reservoir and doing a lap on some of my favorite single-track trail. Today had been a dismal day when things weren't coming to together particularly well, and the weather was soupy with rain and drizzle all day. Hopes of catching a few rays of sun for a late afternoon run faded and I went to my $10 per month gym instead.

I hate exercising indoors almost always, but am glad to have the option in winter especially, or when something quick at night works better. I can pretty much only do an hour on the treadmill, and that's pushing my mental limits of toleration. It's just so boring, even with watching TV, that its hard to maintain a strong effort. Today though I just wanted to sweat and run a little, so I did 5 minutes of walking then 5 minutes of running for 40 minutes, which made it easy and relaxing.

Then during the run blocks I started just doing mini progressions, staring intently on the clock, doing like a minute at 7 mph, then 8 mph, etc. In one block I topped out at 10 mph for a minute, and it felt refreshing to run that fast, just staring at the clock for one minute. Normally you don't want to look much at the clock; you try to avoid it because treadmills make the passing of time dreadful, hence the nickname they've acquired 'dreadmill'. Instead I looked at nothing but the seconds ticking off on the clock, facing the enemy, and it worked this time.

Been a while since I ran at 6 minutes per mile, but I feel good and loosened up tonight, and it made for a great sweat. So today it was more like treadmill meditation, and I really enjoyed the change of pace, literally. Without those relaxing 5 minute blocks of walking though, which luckily I think is fine during a the mini taper this week, it wouldn't have been fun at all.