Building Endurance

Today I semi-reluctantly headed out the gym. Part of me didn't want to run - I think I was afraid of not performing well. I hopped onto the treadmill and set it for the usual: 12 minutes with a 1.5 incline at 5.1 mph, giving me a distance of just over a mile. This is the way I normally do my workouts. I set the treadmill for 12:00 because running a mile is usually pretty simple for me, but sometimes I really have to push myself to run just one mile. By setting the machine for 12:00, it allows me to feel out my run so that I'm not let down or disappointed in myself because I wasn't able to run the 2.0 miles I'd wanted to. Usually I add a few minutes as I near the 12:00 marker when I have a good grasp of how my run is going. By the way, I completely forgot I'd planned to do intervals today. I think that I may be over eager.

Anyway, today I decided to try something new during my run. On a treadmill, I find it very difficult to focus on anything BUT the digital numbers in front of me. I don't listen to music when I run and I don't cover the treadmill with a magazine or a towel. I don't know, part of me feels like that's cheating. So I've always had this internal struggle: how do I overcome the mental obstacles that keep me from running as long as I can? I know that my body is capable of running 30:00, I proved that this summer when I went for my daily runs.

As of a couple of weeks ago, the longest I had run on a treadmill was 15:00 minutes. Then one day I wowed myself with a 2.0 mile run (24:00). Earlier this week I realized that I had met this goal without even noticing, and set a new goal for myself: run for 25:00. Yesterday I just kept running. And running. And then 25:00 minutes was over. Today, I had the aspiration of running a mile, and if it was going well, 1.5 miles. As I started my run, I got to thinking about how this mental monster was keeping me from achieving my goals, and how I wasn't okay with that. Blocking the numbers in front of me wouldn't help me overcome my problem, it would only act as a surface solution. I decided to try something new. I was on a treadmill in front of a window, so I started counting as people went by. This gave me a task and kept my mind busy and focused, something I found incredibly difficult to do on a treadmill. Every time 15 people walked by, I would allow myself to look down and check on my progress - if I thought I could hold out for a while longer, I would up it to 30 people.

Soon I had been running for 20 minutes, and I realized that the physical hardships that had kept me from running longer durations all came from my mental obstacles. I would have gone further, but I forgot to up the time and by the time I realized, the machine had already gone into cool down. I walked for about 3 minutes and then decided to run for an additional 6:00. This would give me a total time of 36:00 and a total distance of 2.5 miles. Today was officially my longest run in one workout, the longest amount of time I ran in one workout, and the longest span of consecutive running on a treadmill. If I had gotten to the add minutes button soon enough, I could have been my longest continuous run ever, outside or on a treadmill, but I suppose that will have to wait for another day.

The hardest part about today's run was the chafing. I've started to realize that if I run more than 2.0 miles, the frictions really builds up and burns my inner thighs. Today was the worst, but I convinced myself that the pain was minimal and that I should just keep going. It really wasn't so bad in the grand scheme of things, but even walking home after my workout caused me a lot of discomfort. I decided that it was time for some spandex, and so I set out to Dick's Sporting Goods with my lovely roommate to find a pair of shorts. While I was there I also picked up a CamelBack water bottle, which I think will be a lot more user-friendly for me while I'm running (Nalgenes are terrible at the gym, and splash guards don't help much).

Today may very well be my proudest running day!