Yesterday the magic treadmill gave me a gift. The magic treadmill exists among the back row of that particular equipment at my gym. There are the regular treadmills in the front row, normal but with the nice added feature of a fan built into the dashboard. The back row units, however, are special. Every time your foot hits the surface, the machine happily springs you back into the air with very little added assistance from you. The result is that you can go much farther and faster than you could have imagined, and run way better than you can actually do in real life. Less Rush Limbaugh, more Usain Bolt.
There is one particular treadmill in this row that shines. Perhaps the calibration is off, it is in a well-ventilated section of the gym or it could be the recipient of a spell cast by some personal trainer sorceress. Whatever the cause, the thing is unbelievable. According to its read-out, I am really, really fast. I know that, in fact, I am not really, really fast, but I do adore the ghost in the machine.
Some background, first. I took two days off of training before yesterday’s run. Lately, I have been running five days a week, with a rest day both before and after a long run on the weekend. This means that I never take two days in a row off. Last week, I had my fifth day, and longer run (eight miles) on Saturday, so Sunday was a rest day. I was set to begin my work-out week on Monday, but, in the immortal words of Greg Brady, something suddenly came up. I took the day off. I was extra rested heading into Tuesday’s run. Still, at the beginning, I wasn’t sure how it would go. I have been extremely tired lately because work has been insane, and I was not in a running kind of mood. I started out with my warm-up mile. In itself this is ridiculous. Outside, my warm-up mile is 10:30 minutes. Magic Treadmill? Eight minutes, forty-five seconds. Thirty six minutes later I finished my run. Five and a half miles in 44:45. Four and a half miles at an average pace of eight minutes per mile.
I am not an eight-minute-mile person. I am a 10-minute-mile girl. If I push myself, maybe nine and a half. Real runners do eight-minute miles. People who lumber along with the sole hope of not keeling over during the run don’t.
I should feel great about this. I think, however, that the magic treadmill may be not so much a great motivator as it is a Nigerian prince offering me a rare chance at a guaranteed lucrative investment. It whispers enticingly that, yes, I can run the Broad Street Run in under 85 minutes, even though my fastest previous time is 102 minutes. I can break a two hour half-marathon. I can, gulp, do the impossible: qualify for the Boston Marathon. I just have to give it more time. I have to hire a nutritionist and a coach to perfect my form and protect its fragile motor from my heavy foot strikes. It beseeches me to sacrifice my remaining wisps of spare time, my love of junk food, several pairs of running shoes and a few toenails to the alter of running glory.
I am not fully in its grasp. I still have my weekly outdoor long run, which serves as a remarkably effective reminder that I am still a back-of-the-packer.
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I had the batting cage equivalent of your magic treadmill. I called it the confidence booster. I don't know what it was about that batting cage, because slow-pitch softball is slow-pitch softball, but I would consistently hit 10 line drives on 10 pitches. Every time I fell into a slump, I headed right for this cage. I wanted to cry when the place closed.
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