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Sometimes in life one must do some things that just aren’t so pleasant. Today I reluctantly did just that. Some here in MN would say I was a wimp. Maybe I was but heck I’m 50 now so I can if I want too. I had to swallow my pride and just do it.

I ran indoors for the first time in many years. Not just a measly 30 minutes or so but for 90 minutes I ran on a treadmill. Actually I refer to at as dreadmill. I gave into the cold temperatures and that ever so popular weather term called wind chill.

For me running on a dreadmill is more boring than watching extreme makeover or a movie such as “You got mail”. For Pete’s sake you don’t go anywhere. It’s like being a gerbil on one of those wheel things. Come to think of it Gerbils look a lot like they are bored. Now I understand. You run you’re a$$ off and you are right where you started and nothing changed along the way.

As I was doing this excruciating task I did take a look around once in awhile. There was a guy a number of rows up from me working out on a step machine. At first there was a tiny spot on the back of his cotton grey T-Shirt. I watched it slowly get bigger and bigger until the whole back of his shirt was entirely wet. That took up about 45 minutes or so. I looked over and saw another guy running on a dreadmill at a pace of 9:00 mph. Let’s see I was doing close to that. Oh okay maybe not close but 6:00 mph isn’t bad for a 50 year old bean counter. But you know what he may have thought he was going faster than me but he never got any further away. One good thing about dreadmills the guy in front never gets too far ahead. Wait there's more. For quite awhile the machines next to me whre not being used. But then a person did get on one of them. So much for a little bit of the some solitude. I thought it was a moose or something by the amount of noise he was making. I refer to those runners as ploppers. That was pretty much about it as far as scenery and stuff. Do you think you could of handle all that excitment? I certainly would rather not try it again for awhile that's for sure..

For the most part I feel good that I got in a nine mile run. I needed to get the miles in and had I tried to run outside I am not sure I could have done 9. So in that regard yes it was something that had to be done. Next week I will be outdoors and I will feel much more like a leopard than a gerbil.