After running the 8k on Sunday, I did 5 on Monday. It wasn't a great 5 miles - it felt harder than it should have, especially for the first couple miles - but I got it done, and the last half was better than the first half.

Then, last night, I had 9 miles scheduled. Since I knew there was no way I was going to get home from work and finish the run before it got dark, I decided to take it indoors. After a blissful 6 months without the treadmill, I wasn't exactly looking forward to it. However, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I tried to get myself psyched up for the run. I worked on figuring out what I could watch on TV to keep my occupied during the 90+ minutes it would take me to run. I crossed my fingers that there wouldn't be anyone else in the fitness center at my boyfriend's apartment (since his place has nice, functioning equipment, whereas the "fitness center" at my place has proven to be a complete waste of space), so I wouldn't be subjected to someone else's TV preferences.

I arrived at my boyfriend's apartment, changed, grabbed a bottle of water and headed down to the treadmill, ready to go for 9 miles. I turned the TV to my station (since I was alone! Bonus!), started the treadmill up at 5.0 mph, and was rocking and rolling.

I figured 5.0 would be a good place to start, for a nice warm up. And while I didn't feel like I was working particularly hard with respect to my heart rate, etc, I felt like my legs were moving a lot faster than they should have been. I cranked it up to 5.5 after a couple of miles, and it felt a lot better. And I think I've discovered my problem with treadmills: I run a fairly consistent cadence, but adjust my stride length to change speed, for the most part. On a treadmill, my stride length has to stay the same but the cadence changes, and it feels weird.

At the 4 mile point, I cranked it up to 6.0 and decided to take a stretch/water break at 5 miles. I was hoping spending a few minutes off the treadmill would be enough to break up the horrible monotony of running in the same spot for over an hour. I took a drink, refilled my water bottle, stretched out my legs, changed the channel on the TV, and got ready for 4 more miles.

As soon as I started running again, my legs complained. They just felt dead and tired, like the past couple days of running had finally caught up with me. I told myself I had to finish at least 2 miles, for a total of 7, and that 8 and 9 were optional. Between the boredom and the fact that my legs were just about shot, 7 miles was a struggle. However, I was running for well over an hour, so I'm willing to accept that as "close enough". Maybe I'll add a couple of miles to my run on Thursday if I'm feeling good.

For now, I got a good medium-long run in yesterday, and my legs are so very glad that they get to rest today. Here's hoping the day of rest will do some good.