In the T-Zone

Today's workout consisted of a 30 minute run on the treadmill at our community center's gym.

Amongst runners, treadmills seem to provoke fairly strong reactions, of the kind that suggesting to someone that we should eat kittens might.

Okay, perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic;  let's say puppies instead of kittens.

But all provocations aside, it seems like many runners view treadmillers with a bit of disdain (but not a lot, since runners tend to be a pretty easy-going, live-and-let-live sort of a crowd).  From my interpretation of the community's general mood, running is supposed to be the most basic of sports, the most back-to-natural;  all one need do is start putting one foot before the other in rapid succession to be a runner.  A treadmill, on the other hand, is an unnecessary piece of technology, the runner's equivalent of a tanning bed, a prosthetic trail that goes nowhere and keeps you from part of the point of running:  connection with the world outside.

Which is, of course, part of the point of a treadmill.  When it's too cold/rainy/hot to run outside is when a treadmill is supposed to be deployed.  For instance, there are times when the only opportunity I'll have to run during the course of the day is when temperatures are peaking, and while it would certainly prove my machismo to run in 105F heat, it would also worsen the pretty gnarly farmer's tan I'm currently sporting, which makes me look like I have tan sleeves and I'm wearing a pasty white muscle flesh-shirt (sexy!).

Although I've always included some sort of jogging in my attempts to exercise since high school, the treadmill was how I first started testing out the idea of a midfoot/forefoot strike, and running distances longer that 2 miles at a sitting (no pun intended).  The distance-thing is a bit ridiculous;  I'd read Born to Run after hearing Chris McDougall on our local NPR affiliate, but I only started actually running more because my wife took a "Body Pump" class at our gym.

This past year, we started trying to exercise more regularly, and often we'd accompany each other to our workouts.  We used to take 20 minute sessions on the treadmill together, but when my wife started her hour-long Body Pump class, I was left with essentially a half-hour of nothing to do (well, I suppose I could've always gone home, but when it comes to exercise and fitness for folks like me who have been pale and chubby for their whole lives, you cling to your exercise partner like you might the other survivor of a shipwreck.  That shipwreck being your physique, your cardiovascular and respiratory health, etc.), at which point I'd sorta lamely say to myself, well, I suppose I could hop back on the treadmill.  Since it was in a gym I was able to distract myself with CNN (or "The View";  what plays on the gym's t.v.s depends on the time of day, and I think I know Whoopie, Joy, Barbara Walters, Sherri and Elizabeth way more than any fully employed man ought);  watching the news relieved for me the greatest single complaint that I hear about treadmill running, boredom.

I don't mind treadmilling as much as some, although, of course, if I can run outside in the fresh smog I'd rather.  In redeeming the maligned treadmill's reputation, I've read recently that serious runners (pro-types with endorsements and the like) will use the treadmill to train safely for hill-running by cranking up the incline, which I've tried recently (to my regret).  But besides learning that perhaps I'm best suited to the flat, plains sort of running, I was able to work my mileage up from 2 miles to 4, 4 miles to 6, and the rest is history - if you can count the past 7 months as historical.  At least in terms of my running.

Camp T-Zone (as in, Treadmill Zone... although I heard recently that the T-Zone name may already be taken...)
3.4 mi.  30 min.  8:49 pace.