First Treadmill Run of the Season

It happened. I didn’t want it to happen. I wasn’t ready for it to happen. I told myself it wasn’t going to happen. Oh, I knew that it would happen eventually, but not yet. Not so soon. But, it happened. I had to run on the treadmill this week.

It’s not that I hate running on the treadmill. I don’t. In fact, I kinda like it. Running on a treadmill is a good way to stay honest about my pace. It’s a good way to experiment with pace and intervals. I can take risks on the treadmill that I would never take outside.

Here in Chicago it’s getting dark very early. I know it gets dark early every year, but this year seems different. Maybe because we’ve had about a week of clouds and overcast skies. Maybe because I’m running in the 100 acre woods and it’s darker in there. I don’t know. It just seems darker, earlier.

Part of the problem is that I’m an afternoon runner. I look forward to my run all day long. I think about what I’m going to do, where I’m going to go, how far I’m going to run, how fast I’m going to run. You get the idea. I obsessed about the run all day long.

I think about what I’m going to wear. I watch the temperature to see – this time of year – if I can still wear shorts or if I’ll have to switch to tights. I watch the weather closely to see if I’m going to need a jacket and hat and gloves. No matter what else is happening during the day, some part of my head is thinking about my run.

But Tuesday, it happened. I had “things to do” that kept me running around later in the afternoon than I thought they would. I got caught in traffic – which nearly never happens to me anymore. I made the mistake of looking at my email BEFORE I got dressed to run. And then – HORROR – it was too dark to run outside.

It took me a little while to make peace with the machine. It sat there for months taunting me. Reminding me that there would come a day when I’d have to get back on. And I did.

It went well. It was a “walk” day and I needed a 40 minute workout. I started slowly, carefully, to get the feel of the belt under my feet. Then, I started to pick up speed. Then, I started to add elevation. Eventually, I was doing my “hilly” workout running uphill, downhill, and on the flat.

At the end of the run I felt good. Good, of course, because I had run. But better than that I hadn’t NOT run just because I couldn’t do the run I had been thinking about all day.

In the end that’s what makes runners, runners. We run. We adjust. We change our minds. We make decisions based on the reality of our life. And we run.

Because we know that even the worst run is better than no run at all.

John “the Penguin” Bingham, Runner’s World columnist Author, The Courage to Start, No Need for Speed, Marathoning for Mortals and Running for Mortals.