Goal: 5 miles – Reality: 5.02 miles / Running on a Hamster Wheel

I want to start by giving a public apology to my deceased hamster, Footy Face (don’t ask about the name. It was college – I was most certainly drunk when I named him) for all the fancy exercise wheels I put in his cage throughout his lifetime. Metal ones, plastic ones, big ones, little ones. Poor little guy. I thought he was having fun running on them. I thought I was doing him a favor by giving him these great wheels to play on. Now I have to wonder if he cursed me like I curse the creator of the treadmill. He spent a whole lot of his little hamster life just running and running, but going nowhere. Poor little Footy Face. Sorry little buddy.

I mean, who (man, woman, or hamster) really wants to run in place for hours on end? Not me!
I had every intention of getting up before the sun to get my run done outside today. Too bad I somehow managed to set the alarm for an hour too late this morning, so when the radio started blaring at 5:45 am instead of 4:45 am I had a few choice words for the alarm as well as the treadmill that was now unfortunately in my future.

As the temp went down this evening (from 95 to 90 to a balmy 89 degrees), I seriously debated if it would really be THAT awful running outside tonight.  I mean, yeah it would suck, but would it really suck that much more than tripping my way through 5 miles on the treadmill? Because I couldn’t cut the run short tonight. I couldn’t! As much as it was going to suck, I had to commit to the full 5 miles since I crapped out early on my Tuesday run. Really, maybe 89 degrees wouldn’t be THAT awful. With the heat from the blacktop it would only feel like, what 109 degrees?

Yeah, I came to my senses and went to the gym.

Fortunately the TV options were a little better tonight, and 2 episodes of Community later, the run was over. Sure, I stumbled over my own two feet a good 5 times, but fortunately my face never came quite as close to hitting the screen of the treadmill as it did multiple times on Tuesday. So I guess if you have to find a bright spot to my running performance tonight – there’s one for you.  The first 2.5 miles weren’t too bad, but the second 2.5 miles seemed to drag on FOREVER. I was sure the mileage tracker had to be broken. “Hello! Is this thing on?” It seemed to be moving SO SLOWLY!

But in the end, I survived running on my hamster wheel without injury today.

Go me!

And fortunately Saturday’s forecast is looking much cooler, so with any luck we won’t be melting for the Team in Training group run in the morning. I’m just looking forward to getting back out on the road again. The run Saturday is scheduled for 7 miles, so by the coach’s mapping (that’s always WAY longer than it should be), I’m guessing we’ll see closer to 8 miles. I just hope they’re 8 good miles. I’ve had enough lousy runs this week. I’m ready to get off the hamster wheel and to have some fun again!

Keep on running!