I love running outside, even in the snow and the cold, but not when the roads are dangerous! Some recent heavy snowfalls have turned our breakdown lanes into snowbanks, and our sidewalks into uneven patches of ice and packed down snow. It’s a sprained ankle or a car accident waiting to happen.
There sidewalks will get better, but there are more times lately when it’s dark outside and the roads aren’t good, and I’m finding myself on the treadmill to stay in good running shape and get my endorphin kick.
I struggle doing more than half an hour on the treadmill because I get bored. I used to watch movies, but I found it hard to hear them over the treadmill (I didn’t like our wireless headphones) so I would put on subtitles, and trying to read subtitles, run, and watch the action was a bit tough.
So yesterday when I wanted to get 5 miles in, I grabbed an old favorite, a movie I had seen so many times that I could half pay attention, laugh at the good parts, and still know exactly what was going on. Five miles went by pretty fast… and probably could have turned into six except it was Greg’s turn on the treadmill!
My favorite movie for this happens to be Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl. I am not in love with Captain Jack Sparrow… I want to BE Captain Jack Sparrow. I’m pretty sure he gets himself into circumstances that require quite a bit of running.
Good times.
UPDATE: I just realized this post was incomplete without a photo of me as Captain Jack Sparrow for a Halloween party when I was in grad school… AWESOME. I kind of wish I dressed like Jack Sparrow every day.
How do you get through your treadmill workouts?
I wish I had a treadmill 😛 I would watch Castle while I ran!
My winter running as been about once a week thus far. Looks like a beautiful day here! Hoping for a run when I get home from work.
I have a tv by my treadmill, but not cable reception. I’m going to move the dvd player down to the tv …that should help a lot. I HATe to run on the treadmill, but this is a great option. Thanks!
Good luck! It definitely helps ease the boredom! I’m thinking of watching Under the Tuscan Sun next, I LOVED that film!
Winter running is tough – I didn’t run a lot last winter either, and I remember going on vacation in February and wanting to run and feeling really frustrated by my pace! It helped me kick it up a notch for the spring. Sometimes it’s fun to have a little down time in your running – I didn’t run this past week, because Christmas was so busy, and I didn’t let myself feel concerned or guilty about it. I’ll be back to running this week and in the upcoming months, and it’ll be because I want to, not because I feel obligated to even though my schedule is crazy! (Which is what it would have felt like if I’d forced in the time while we were visiting family at Christmas)
Subtitles! That is brilliant, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Our weather has also left me stranded in the basement on the treadmill, and I’ve been watching movies for long runs and TV shows for the 30-45 min runs (Revenge right now) on Netflix via the Wii. It is hard to hear it though, so I will definitely put subtitles on. Sometimes I read on my Kindle while I’m running too, but it has to be a book that I don’t have to pay a lot of attention to so that I can skim and get the gist of it.