Running Outside vs. Treadmill

For the past 3 weeks or so I've been running on a treadmill as opposed to outside. I realised that this change was a necessity when the daily temperature hit above 30 degrees Celsius for a number of weeks straight. I have yet to be able to bring myself to be an early morning a.k.a before it gets incredibly hot runner so inside an air-conditioned building I went. Yesterday, it was overcast and still hovering around 20 degrees at 10 a.m. when I decided it was time to do my 50-minute run for the day. I drove my car to the edge of my favorite running path, set the timer on my fancy pedometer watch, and away I went.

Overall, I'd have to say that I prefer running outside to inside. Running and actually getting somewhere as opposed to running and never getting anywhere has its perks especially for sanity's sake. I did, however, find it a lot more difficult to pace myself outside. On a treadmill, I know exactly what speed to set the machine at and I keep that pace the entire time, give or take a few adjustments depending on how I happen to be feeling. The days that I can bring myself to hit the "up" arrow are celebration worthy. The days I have to force myself to hit the "down" arrow are not worthy of discussing here. When I ran outside yesterday, I obviously started out entirely too fast because by the time I was at 30 minutes, I was pretty exhausted. I really had to push myself to make it to 50 minutes without stopping to walk.

Running outside also comes with nature's little blunders. Not once, but twice, I stepped on a massive rock (more likely a pebble) that almost brought me to my knees. That is one of the problems with running in Vibrams; they have very little padding on the soles so that they come as close to bare-foot running as a shoe possibly can. When you step on a rock wearing Vibrams, you feel it!

The other thing about running outside, the half marathon is going to be outside. I think that statement is pretty self-explanatory.

My conclusion is that I need to try to run outside as much as I can. For a few months, that should get a bit easier. It's mid-August which means that temperature is going to start dropping considerably. From now until the snow falls, I'll try and have my feet pounding the pavement as opposed to rubbing against the rubber.

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