My new best friend.... The treadmill!

Today I continued my Florida to Erie road trip and unfortunately, this is what I saw. The snow started in West Virginia and continued off and on until we reached Erie. Zach and I drove a total of 17 hours the past two days and totaled over 1,000 miles, pretty crazy huh? Well despite the long drive, I was able to drag myself over to the Gannon REC center when we got back to meet up with an old friend, the treadmill. It has been about 2 and a half weeks since I have ran on the treadmill and what a differences it makes! I felt great running, since I was used to running outside where there are hills and nothing to keep my pace. The treadmill just gives you self motivation to keep going, because it does the motivation for you by keeping you at  certain pace. The treadmill felt better on my knees as well, I didn't feel like I was constantly pounding while running. A smart training tip that I learned from a friend who runs races like 5ks, 10ks, and half marathons is that while training on a treadmill it is important to run at a 1 percent grade, in order to make it more like running outside. So this is an excellent way to train on a treadmill and make it not completely different than running outside.  I mean lets face it, running outside is a lot harder. This is an important fact to consider because most of my runs will have to be done on the treadmill because of the bad weather around Erie. It is suppose to warm up this weekend, so my hope is that I may be able to sneak in a run outside  sometime. But as for now, its just me and my friend the treadmill. I know my knees will be happier for it!