Baby, it's cold outside or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the treadmill

When I started running last year (or run/walking at first as an unfit beginner) I was so chuffed to have found a form of exercise which no longer shackled me to the gym, and more to the point shackled my bank account to some 2-year contract. I joined a couple of running groups, some cost a little money (the Glasgow Running Network’s 10k Crash Course for Beginners), others were free (parkrun and Jog Scotland), but all involved getting out and pounding those pavements in the fresh air.

Unfortunately, fresh air in Scotland also comes with rain, hail, sleet, fog, and as we have all witnessed recently, snow! If I’m totally honest I have to admit that I only ran in the rain a handful of times last year, just lucky I guess (or does that say a lot about how often I went running... :-0). But when the severe weather took hold last month, I thought sod this for a game of soldiers! Walking on the pavements was a dice with death (and embarrassment if you went flying in the middle of Sauchiehall Street) never mind try running on them (even though I did see some runners out in the height of the icy weather but they were always men, and I just thought, ‘aye trust them‘!) so I did something I thought I would never ever do again…..joined a gym!

But do you know what, hand on my heart, I’ve never enjoyed running more! I’ve discovered all these advantages you see. Like for instance, it doesn’t rain in a gym (unless some eejit has set the sprinkler system off for a lark). The amount of people who get to witness my red face and wobbly arse are way reduced (and I think I am actually doing the public a favour in this respect!). And if I need the loo mid run, I can actually go and use one, instead of wondering if I’ll make it back in time or cursing having been born a woman with the less handy equipment which makes it so easy for guys to go to the toilet anytime, anywhere.

I think the biggest turn on to the joy of treadmill running for me has been that no matter how slow I run I am no longer huffing and puffing at the back of the pack, trying hard not to be last in the race or last back to the muster point. There’s nothing more soul-destroying to be in a running group where you are the slowest (and I have been, quite a few times) . But now on the treadmill I can joyfully keep up with my pal N and although we cover a different distance in the space of an hour, I’ve still done the hour’s run, but just at my own pace, happy as Larry!

That’s just my personal experience of treadmill running though, as I know many people could think of nothing worse than running on a revolving tyre like a lab rat, never moving any further forward than the fixed spot of the machine, while staring at some unchanging view (or in the worst case scenario, a mirror….aarrghh!). Yeah, even I’ll admit that being stuck in the same location can be fraught with dangers. Especially when smelly/letchy/competitive* guy (*delete as appropriate, or if you’re really unlucky you get all three rolled into one) chooses the treadmill right next to you, despite a whole bank of other free treadmills. But that’s when I choose to play my joker: run in an insanely distracting way as possible (a bit like Phoebe did in Friends) and that usually scares them off. Till they go and fetch their pals to point and stare at you, but that doesn’t happen too often.

I’ve probably struck lucky with my gym as well, as they have none of those anti-runner rules like ‘maximum of 20 minutes on machines’ (my friend at work was telling me she actually had a queue behind her when she was on the treadmill at her gym - I can’t imagine anything worse than people standing impatiently waiting for me to finish my go or fall off the treadmill, whichever happened to come first). And I’ve been able to sign up for just 3 months so can de-camp to the real world in April, free of an ongoing direct debit.

But all good things come to an end (even a 10k race, though it doesn’t feel like it at the 1k mark) and I know I’m going to have to go back outside at some point and join all the other brave souls who have already started hitting the tarmac for their 10k training. So if you see a mad girl running along with crazy flailing arms and legs which puts you in mind of Phoebe Buffay, then you will know that the wind changed and I’ve stayed like that!