The Squirrel Syndrome

Living in Chicago I have the advantage of experiencing a full four-season year. Living in Chicago, I have the disadvantage of experiencing a full four-season year. What I mean is that I have to run through a rainy spring, a hot summer, a beautiful fall, and an awful winter. And what that means is that for at least some part of every year I am an indoor runner. And that means the treadmill.

It’s true that we’ve got a pretty nice treadmill. It’s got lots of fancy buttons. It keeps track of your history, tells you your heart-rate, how many calories you’ve burned, what your high school GPA was – only kidding. The point is that it has the capacity to give me MUCH more data than I want. A message to all treadmill manufacturers out there: the only types of information I want from a treadmill are pace, time, distance, and elevation. Oh, one more thing. I want it to be quiet enough that I don’t have to turn the volume on the television so high that my neighbors can hear it.

For the first few weeks on the treadmill I feel like I’m being punished. So much of the joy of running for me comes from the sense of being free. I am liberated from the constraints of the rest of my life. I can run as fast or as slow as I want. I can run as far as I want. I can run. I can walk. I can define the experience for myself, by myself.

On the treadmill, I’m getting too much feed back. I know exactly my pace. I know exactly how far I’ve run. I know exactly how long I’ve run and – worse yet – exactly how much longer I have to run.

Eventually, though, I become at peace with the treadmill. It might be stretching it to say that I fully embrace the treadmill, but, I at least get to the point where I understand that it’s up to me to make the best of it. I start to “play” with the bells and whistles. I try the programmed workouts. [BEWARE of the HILL workout]. I come to the place where – while not as much fun as running outside – I’m am having fun.

The result of this is that come spring I’ve got a good base. I don’t do LONG runs on the treadmill, but I run short and often. So when the weather breaks, even for a day, I’m ready to go.

There’s more that I’d like to say. Instead, I’m heading downstairs to play squirrel.

John “the Penguin” Bingham, Competitor Magazine columnist Author, The Courage to Start, No Need for Speed, Marathoning for Mortals and Running for Mortals.

The miracle isn’t that I finished. The miracle is that I had the courage to start.”

Have a question for John? E-mail it to thepenguin@johnbingham.com.