Hatin'

I have something of a love/hate relationship with treadmills.  Living in New Orleans, they are something I rarely have to use.  For one, the winters here are relatively mild (though, as a cold weather wimp I still complain).  And due to my job, I usually spend most of the day inside.  Running is the one time that I get outside, enjoy nature & have a moment to myself.  When I do have to use them I generally find myself in one of 2 situations:  Either I get into a groove & knock out the miles wondering why I don't use treadmills more often, or I spend the whole run staring at the mileage as it ticks slowly 0.1 mile at a time.  Usually it's the latter.

So over the past year, anytime I was forced to run indoors I usually chose another option:  the mini-track.  My local gym has this itty-bitty track that requires 9 loops for a mile.  And that's if you're in the outer loop.  Yeah.

One would think it would be awful, but I've found I like it better than the dreadmill.  Particularly because my gym is located on an undergraduate campus, there are always things to distract you.  Coeds having inappropriate conversations on their cell phones, guys flexing & grunting to show off (ps guys... not sexy) and scandalous workout outfits are everywhere.  (If your gym shorts are so short that I can see your thong, you might want to rethink your gym clothes.  Just sayin'.)

At this rate, I may never run on a treadmill in New Orleans again.  I even knocked out a 16 miler on the mini-track and a handful of shorter runs.  (One warning though:  one leg tends to get a little sore.)

What types of runs do you try to avoid & what are you willing to do to get out of them?

Oh... and for fuel on your treadmill, mini-track, outdoors or otherwise runs, a little Gu giveaway hosted by 26.2 Quest.