Since I'm pretty sure I almost died (DIED!) from cold last week, I followed some questionable advice on the Internet and ordered an indoor trainer this morning. I guess it's time to sign up for Zwift.
...which, incidentally, may have solved one of my biggest challenges with the treadmill! I put the treadmill in front of a window last winter so that I wouldn't just have to stare at a wall while I ran, but the number of times I get to run during the daylight has diminished to roughly zero. Staring at a darkened reflection of myself is curiously off-putting (and off-balancing!), so I started wondering if there was a Zwift-like thing-a-ma-jigger for runners.
Of course, my treadmill is a 2008 vintage, so it wasn't going to be a smart-app kind of thing: I was just looking for rolling video of scenery. I found a few things on the Tubes that were...dreadful. They were just freakin' dreadful. One claimed to be scenery from England, and looked nice enough, until the car taking the video pins the throttle (and accelerates the video) on a country road. Another was just shots from some urban metropolis slowly zooming in. I guess the thought was to create the illusion of movement. No. No no no. God no.
Finally I found what looked to be the most boring thing of all: a 3rd person view of a dude running through the woods. And it was perfect. 52 minutes of some guy's back. I found myself breathing heavier as he climbed, and almost instinctively jumping over obstacles in his path. I might have even ducked under a branch or two.
But for 31.5 minutes, I barely looked at the clock and just focused on the running.
Winter training just got a whole lot less awful.
And the best part? Now I can train with my bestest bestie! Lady K has declared her intention to run a 5K this Spring, and with the treadmill and the bike trainer in the same space, I think we'll be more likely to use both! Huzzah!
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