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On an unseasonably warm February day in 2000, a relatively unknown runner from Anchorage surprised the field of other elite runners with a win at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. We later learned that Christine Clark had trained on a treadmill during the frigid Alaska winter. Besides allowing for the volume and intensity required to compete at the top level, the treadmill running enabled her to keep an eye on her young children at home during the time that she wasn’t busy working as a medical doctor. Dr. Clark won the right to represent the U.S. at the Sydney Olympics and became the hero of treadmill runners everywhere.
I have a love/hate relationship with my True 550 Treadmill. On the one hand, it’s always there when I need it. And that’s been pretty darn often in these past couple of months. It allows me to get the quality of workouts and the volume of miles that I want. (By the way, I’ve had it for around 19 years, and I’ve probably got over 10,000 miles on it.) Some days, I just don’t want to face the snow, the cold, the ice, the slush, and especially the lack of places to run. If I have a longish run or an interval session planned, if the weather’s bad, it’s pretty simple to just crank the mill to the right setting and go.
There’s only one problem: I loathe the darn thing. At best, it’s boring as heck. At worst, it’s a crutch that I’m using only in order to record extra miles into my log whilst remaining warm and cozy. And I actually feel some guilt as a result. Not quite enough to get me to stay off it for good, but some guilt, nonetheless. So let me just admit it: I’m a treadmill wimp. But whenever I feel a little too wimpy, I think of Christine Clark. And after a couple days in a row on the mill, I’ll go outside for a run no matter the conditions.
My self-proclaimed wimpiness does not apply to my friends and training partners, even those who do occasionally hit the mill. Some of them, in fact, are tough as nails.
One guy who exudes toughness is my friend Larry Orwin. Larry runs gobs of miles, and he runs a lot of miles outdoors, weather be damned. I greatly admire that. A couple of years ago, Larry suffered a major injury. No one would have expected him to come back as strong as he had been, but, by working hard and being tough, he did. And he's still out there, pushing hard, putting in those miles whilst battling the ice and snow of this and every winter.
Don’t mind my wimpiness too much. If you use a treadmill occasionally or not so much, or if you run outside in all conditions, you can still pat yourself on the back. We are making it through this pandemic and cold winter, so that makes us tough no matter how you look at it. I will say this as well: although it may seem as though Larry’s view differs from mine, I think he would nod when I say that I’ve had some of my best and most enjoyable runs during the worst possible conditions, cold or hot.
As for me, I greatly miss my Larry and my other training partners. I can’t wait for this pandemic to be over (said every runner everywhere).
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