Treadmill Running

One of the options that many snowed-in runners might be turning to this winter is the treadmill.   I know many runners who swear by the treadmill as a way to maintain fitness in a controlled environment.  Alaskan runner Chris Clark made headlines when she qualified for the women's U. S. Olympic marathon team in 2000 on a treadmill.  And I just read an amazing story in this month's Running Journal about a runner in Raleigh, Jeff Lynch, who just broke the Guinness World Record for treadmill running, completing a little over 84 miles in 12 hours.  (To prepare for the event, he says he ran three road marathons back-to-back in three days last June.)  There are always runners out there who can extend the boundaries of what we think might be humanly possible, like the 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days that Dean Karnazes famously ran several years ago.  But a treadmill record is something I truly cannot understand, because I am that rare runner who cannot run even a single mile on the treadmill.

Martha often walks on the treadmill in our basement in inclement weather and wonders why I would venture out in the cold and the snow when I can run indoors.   For me, it's not just my long stride (which after all is growing shorter each year), it's the mental focus that I seem incapable of bringing to bear on this discipline.  True, I could watch TV or listen to music more easily on a TV to help pass the time (Jeff had food and fluid constantly around him, fans blowing on him, and lots of support from friends while he ran).  But there is something about the simple act of moving forward and covering ground that I have missed so profoundly on those occasions when I have attempted to conquer the treadmill.  I know, I know; that little track keeps moving and you are covering miles, but aren't you really standing in the same place in the end?  Isn't it like driving one of those virtual cars in an amusement arcade?

Thanks, but I'll risk frostbite before giving up that glorious sensation of covering ground, even if it may be around and around a track.  Of watching the world pass by in all its bright, flashing, dog-chased, pot-hole ridden glory as we live a life out of doors.