Treadmill duty

The weather here has not been fabulous.  Its been stupid windy (Evergreen clocked a 100 mph gust last night - craziness!).  We've had really cold temps, or warmer but still cool enough for icy condition temps.

In a nutshell, I've been having to do most of my running on the treadmill because its either too cold, too windy, or too slippery to be outside.

ugh

My coach is a smartie (or really in tune with the weather) and has been writing my workouts with notes "this would be good for the tready".  Also: I think she's trying to kill me again. Or make me faster.  Either way, it feels like I might die when I'm running fast on a treadmill.

Last week I was trapped on the hampster wheel twice.  Twice!  Tuesday I had 2 x 6 min 10k pace intervals.  I decided to get it done at the gym in my office.  It's convenient.  But, as I learned, the thermostat is set on "office environment" and is way to warm for a gym.  I normally don't sweat a ton, but I was drenched after my hour run. Not a problem when I'm anonymous in a gym, but this was done in front of coworkers, including a senior executive who actually knows me.  Lovely.  Since I normally don't sweat much, I didn't have a towel for a shower.  I just wiped myself down with baby wipes and went back to my desk.  I think it was at least an hour before I stopped sweating.  I was so sweaty, my little hair-gripper headband was soaked.  Gross!

Friday was a workout which had 2 x 2.5 mi @ 10:00 pace (which is pretty fast for me).  I opted to use my gym membership (well, one of my memberships.  I belong to both Lifetime and 24 hr.  I prefer Lifetime and only have the 24 hr b/c its dirt cheap and good when I travel).  Let me tell you, Lifetime at 6 PM on a Friday night is party city....  I did my warmup and got down to business with my 2.5 mi repeats.  My MP3 player promptly died, leaving me without music and ~50 minutes of hard running.  I could kinda hear the gym music over my pounding (why am I so loud on the treadmill?) and I planted myself in front of the tv with the music videos.  I counted this as mental training.  Also: music videos are really, truly terrible.  Maybe that's my MTV doesn't play videos anymore.  They're awful.

I got home and my feet felt terrible.  My planar fascia was crazy tight.

Is it just me, or does your body react differently to treadmills?  Its like I run differently.  I don't think my body likes it.

Sunday was an easy run, so I did it on the trail by my house with Will.  Yay - outside!  The only tricky part was the ice.  Sure, it was 60 degrees the day before, but that water left puddles which were then ice puddles at 10 AM the next day.  Fortunately, we were running slow.  The weather was interesting... Sunny.  Then cloudy.  Then corn snow (the stuff that looks like little bits of styrofoam).  The snow was welcome because it stuck to the ice puddles, making them easier to see.  Going back to the house, things looked ominous.  Dark, low clouds.  Will made a comment about how the area west of us was getting hammered.  I thought it was just a low cloud.  Then we made a final turn back home and was hit upside the face with a wall of wind and HUGE snowflakes.  Will laughed because he was headed home.  I whimpered because I still had 30 minutes.  I turned around and did my harder intervals.  The cool thing about the trail is that is sits a bit lower than the rest of the area and there's a bunch of trees, so its protected.  The result was huge, puffy flakes (my favorite kind) swirling around me like a snow globe.  Seriously.  It was magical.  And then my last 10 minutes were in sunshine.  I think Colorado was on crack Sunday.

Today is another high wind today, so I'm back over at Lifetime after work for more treadmill fun.  I forgot my MP3 player on the charger at home.....  Hopefully I remember to bring my phone with me and headphones from work.

The funniest part: I'm thinking about doing the Dopey Challenge in 2015, which potentially means 20+ mile runs on the treadmill next winter.  What the hell is wrong with me?