Three and a half years ago I trained for and ran in a half marathon to raise awareness and money for a charity I worked for. I started six months prior to the race (in the winter) and trained three to four times a week. I put a lot of miles on the treadmill which was O.K. at the time because I had a goal that I was determined to get to. I've got some tips for the next time or for anyone interested in training for a long distance run themselves. I'll save them for another time.
Anyway, I said that to say this; 85-90% of my training happened on a treadmill where the scenery never changed, listening to my mp3 player. Once I finished the race I actually mostly stopped running altogether and hated the thought of running on a treadmill. Physically the treadmill is much easier to run on than the road outside, but mentally all you start to think about it how much time has (or hasn't) passed and how much longer/further you have to go. That's tough. It used to take me about half an hour to run three miles, these days a little longer and I knew that five miles would take close to an hour. An hour of running and going nowhere (it is winter yet again and way too icy to run outside) is hard to face and go through with.
Yesterday I finally did it and.... surprise, surprise it wasn't quite as horrible as I was imagining. The great thing about my brain is when I'm mentally prepared for something, it's easier to get all the way through. Knowing that I had to plan for an hour meant that my half way point was going to be thirty minutes so if I could get that far I knew I'd be half done. It's actually easier in the long run to complete a long run than it is to always do short runs. During my half marathon training I was actually getting lazy with my short runs and cutting them short compared to my long runs about four months into my training. I'm not sure if I was just getting tired (I took a week off of running completely that July) or if the short distance didn't matter as much to me as the long distance (heck maybe I was actually trying to run too fast, I'm not sure).
Anyway, the point is that it's best to know what you're in for when you're getting into something challenging like an hour of running. I know that twenty to thirty minutes is pretty standard for me and I know how far I can run in that time (in miles and kilometres). I wouldn't say it's something you need to know to run once a week really far (this programs has two runs a week in it) but you should think about what will help you get through it mentally. A friend of mine will revert to 10:1 running (run ten minutes: walk one minute) when she hasn't run in a long time (sometimes she'll do 6:1 if it's been a really long time). Whatever works for you I don't believe it's essential to run the entire distance, so long as you try to run (or jog like me). It takes less time to run (bonus for me) and will probably make you feel more accomplished if you aim to run more than you walk (most treadmills will only do one hour at a time anyway, then you have to re-set it to continue- PAIN IN THE BUTT!!).
So I hope this insight helps you in your endeavour to find your life-health-work balance. If you have any questions please leave a comment, I would be more than happy to give you suggestions and more insights.
Keep running after your dreams!
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