I have treadmill issues.

Today that evil white stuff was falling from the sky. By bus stop time this morning, we had a full inch which by suburban DC standards, is a full on blizzard so I was totally shocked when school was neither delayed nor all together cancelled. This is good news though because it meant I got to keep a gym date with a good friend of mine. We have very different schedules this year, with her daughter being in afternoon kindergarten and my kid being an a.m. preschool guy, so we plan these gym dates weeks in advance and if we have to cancel for any reason (last month is was me because Q was sick) we both cry and scream and throw all out temper tantrums. Anyway, today was gym day and the white stuff wasn't going to get in our way.

As I've mentioned, Saturday was a really horrible, totally ungratifying run for me. So this morning on the way to the gym, I was giving myself the big "you will run for miles and miles on that super fun and exciting treadmill!" talk. I got there, jumped on and started running. Ok, I started messing with the buttons while running. I'm all about the big "Quick Start!" button so when I have to do the treadmill thing (only 3 times so far so I really shouldn't complain or act like an expert) I just hit it and run. Today I couldn't get satisfied. Run at 5, too slow....run at 5.8 with an incline of .5, too slow....bump it up to 6 but keep the incline at .5, too slow.....bump it up to 6.6...6.7...6.8 and increase the incline to 1.0....still not happy....turn on the fan....turn the fan up to high.....bump up speed to 7.5...now I don't like the incline, drop it back to .5.....and on and on it went until I settled on 7.8. I am exhausted but not from the running, but from the pure mental aspect of constantly messing with those damn buttons! And not only that but why, why, why does it feel like it takes so much longer to get anywhere when running inside?!

My friend was next to me on the TreadClimber thing (which, by the way, is about the coolest thing ever) and when she was done, I asked her what she was going to do next. She said "I'm going to wait for you to finish, then we can climb the wall!" Climbing the wall is something we've talked about doing for some time now but instead of thinking of that and the fact that I should just be enjoying our time at the gym, I bark back in a super high, whiny voice that I totally didn't recognize, "I can't! I'm going to be on here for a while longer! I've got to at least get in 4 miles! It's taking so long though! I can't stop now!" all freakish like a crack addict. What the hell is wrong with me? I was determined to get at least 4 miles in, a dramatic change from the 6 I promised myself on the way to the gym, but it was just soooo sllloooowwww feeling! So, being the good friend she is, she didn't point out my stammering-idiot-freak talk instead she said "Ooookaayy. I'm going to go row." and off she went. I ran and pushed buttons and ran until I got to my 4 miles then jumped off that damn thing as quick as possible. I joined her at the rowing machines where she was halfway to Oregon by now and apologized for being a freak. Then I rowed. A whopping 5 minutes I rowed. So. Despite the fact that I was cranky when we left, I'm still saying I got a run in today and not only that, but since I did something that involved a body part other than my legs, I can also say I cross-trained!

Gym: 4 miles; 35 minutes (which really is only about 4 minutes slower than normal but I swear, no way will I ever be able to do a 'long run' on that thing!) and rowing not quite to Oregon.