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Daylight savings time change has come and gone. A weekend an hour longer. Nice. So, now I come home in the dark. Here’s the problem. My usual running routine puts me on the trails between five and six. This is right around the time it has turned from dusk to pitch black. And my stomping grounds, Bellingham’s trails, are a little creepy in the dark of night.
As a result, yesterday was my first outing back at the Bellingham Athletic Club on a treadmill. Man, do treadmills suck.
The last two weekends I ran 13 and 10 miles respectively. My daily outings otherwise are around five miles.
So I figured a quick five miles at the gym last night would be no problem. I hated it. I’ve been trying to figure out why and here’s what I’ve come up with:
- I ran in place on a treadmill for 42 minutes. No wind. Even just the headwind I get from running 7mph. I never realized my calves sweat so much. I didn’t realize I sweat so much anywhere else. I sweat a lot!
- When I run on the paths around my house, I have the return trip as motivation. However far I run from my house, I know I have to make it back. I can’t stop running. How else am I going to get home? On a treadmill, all I need to do to get back to where I started is stop running. That’s too easy. If I have any lazy fits, I can just stop. And I thought about that very thing for about 41 minutes last night.
- I really, really hate that first few minutes right after I step off the machine. I get this feeling like I’m turbo walking. Like for the last 42 minutes, my brain has adjusted to running while going nowhere. So when I start walking on the ground, my brain has to readjust and make up for the distance I wasn’t going.
While my weekend runs will still be outside around town, my weekday runs are up in the air. I’m not a fan of the gym right now, but maybe I just need to get over it. Or maybe I need to run around the sidewalks and avoid the dark-ass trails.
Either way, I’m in Bellingham, so I’ll need to wear some waterproof shorts.
