My treadmill and me.....

I hate my treadmill.

Now I know everyone hates the treadmill. Or at least "normal" people do. I admit that my sister prefers to run on the treadmill over running outside and honestly I just cannot understand it. She is not normal. But that is a story for another day. ;)

My problem is that my treadmill hates me too. That is what I get for buying the cheapest one I could possibly find a few years ago. I can never run as fast on the treadmill as I do outside (at the same effort anyway) and after a couple of miles, the thing always starts randomly getting faster, then slower, etc. The worst thing is once in a while it will just cut out on me and stop dead. It is a very unsettling experience. So I try to avoid it as much as I can.

BUT, I had to run on the treadmill this morning if I was going to run at all today. I made it a whole 1.8 miles.

I downloaded the new Eagles album this morning and thought it would be a great distraction while running. My treadmill is in the basement and my son has a ton of toys and art supplies to play with. His big brother is not here, so he has no one to argue with. Should be smooth sailing.

It was not.

First of all, I learned that I have a hard time operating my ipod while on the treadmill. I normally do not run with music, but it is essential for me on the treadmill. Otherwise I just look at the timer clicking oh so slowly by. So I had the ipod today and it was amazing I did not fall off the treadmill while trying to fiddle with it.

Second, the Eagles are NOT the band to listen to while on the treadmill. The new album is typical Eagles beat - WAY too slow for the treadmill. The Road to Eden came on and it was some crazy middle eastern rhythm thing going on. I could only deal with about 30 seconds of it before I had to turn it off. Again, I almost fall off the TM while fiddling with it.

Third, my son was not going to cooperate with me running on the treadmill this morning. He started flipping out over EVERYTHING until finally I turned the damn thing off.

This was not a successful run.

Did I tell you that I hate my treadmill?

Edited for an update: I forgot about karate! Yay! I had the gift of 30 minutes to run this evening while the boys perfected their punches. It was perfect weather, although a bit chilly with the wind. 3.45 miles / 8:44 pace / 148 AHR. Everything felt great.