Tonight I ran 5 miles on the treadmill. It was sheer torture. I'm not sure what even kept me going, but one thing I did think was that if I did complete this run, then I would have accomplished a major mind over matter issue. I began my run with a one percent incline. Apparently this is supposed to better mimic outdoor running and also be better on your joints. I barely made it to one mile before I was feeling ready to quit. So at 1.5 miles I decreased the incline to .5 percent. I think the only reason I didn't put it on zero is because I knew this was better on my knees. Then I made it 2 miles and had decided to quit, but instead I decreased the speed a little bit. I figured I should go to three since that way I could at least trade training days. I made it to three and was planning on quitting but kept running a little bit. If I quit at three, then I would probably just be here again tomorrow night trying to run five again. I decided to go to four. But as I approached four, I decided to go to five. Actually, I pretended to think that I was going to stop at four, but in the back of my mind I had decided to stick it out. If I only went to four how would it fit in on my training schedule? It wasn't three and it wasn't five.

I know the long run of the week is really important to build physical and mental endurance, but does the medium run really depend on it's length? Tonight I felt like I couldn't do another run on the treadmill. In fact, I was really questioning my running ability period. That was quite a change from my positive attitude after Saturday's long run. We've had snow and ice on the ground here since Christmas Eve and even though it's been above freezing for two days, it hasn't melted too much off the sidewalks. It's only January, so I know that we've got days ahead that will be cold and/or icy and snowy, but I think I really need a few nice days outside before I have to stick it out on the treadmill again for any length of time!

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