Pluses of the treadmill:
- A.C. And this plus cannot be emphasized enough.
- The little fan on the treadmill that cools my face so nicely. It's really quite nice.
- Treadmill Bonuses: watching the Daily Show, Colbert Report, and various movies on my phone. Sometimes even watching bad music videos on the TV hooked up to my machine. A good Britney video can do wonders for your running pace.
Minuses of the treadmill:
- The monotony.
- Law of physics: Time spent running goes, at a minimum, 2.3x slower when on a treadmill than when on the street.
- No new places to discover, no new routes to explore
- listening to music can get old quickly (where as running outside I am great with my running playlists)
- Did I mention the *!?&ing monotony??????
- staring at those damn numbers in front of you rather than at trees. Stop taunting me with your skewed sense of time, you stupid treadmill!
If I was a bigger person -- and a less sweaty one, at that -- perhaps I could convince myself to run outside at least half of the time. But this is D.C. and I am a heat wimp and so for the time being, I am relegated to my deluxe hamster wheel. Which brings me to my next point and a plea for help:
If I am running long distances on the treadmill and I need to fight that messed up law of physics, I need some form of distraction or entertainment. I tried watching The Office this weekend on a 7 mile run but it doesn't get me going the way a good Girl Talk tune does. You know what did work pretty well though? Iron Man 2. There were explosions, there was action, there was a terrifying Mickey Rourke with scary electrical-whip death weapons. Plus the plot was pretty good for a superhero sequel! Heart rate goes up --> legs go faster --> run goes more quickly. Everybody wins. Of course, I found myself contemplating torts and who would be liable for the mass destruction inflicted throughout the film (pretty sure Hammer is vicariously liable for hiring Ivan... though the military hired Hammer... within Hammer's scope of duty to hire Ivan? Hmmmm) but that is another post for another time.
The important lesson I learned from Iron Man 2 is that I need to ditch the indie films and the dramas and the rom-coms for the time being, and focus on Netflix's "action & adventure" and "suspense" suggestions. Given that I almost watched Step Up 3 the other day in search of an adrenaline fix, I need some help with this. Does anyone have any good movie recommendations of action/adventure films that are not totally brainless and are exciting to watch? No blood and gore, please!
Thanks for the help!
