It's Spring! (kind of)

It's finally here! Spring has arrived!  I am so ready for the warm (HOT) weather.  But in the last few days its hasn't been too "Springy" here.  It's still pretty chilly- woke up this morning and it was in the 30s.  Not OK. And with the turn of Spring came daylight saving a few weeks ago.  Reasons I hate this: 1) We lose that hour of sleep, obviously. But that's easy to get over. And 2) sunrise is now at 7:30am instead of 6:30am...which is way too late for me to do a morning run outside. So I’ve had to run at the gym instead. Part of me is hoping this will be a good thing because I am able to run on an incline like I used to when I was a strict indoor only runner. I’m hoping this will help me out with the uphill sections of the half in NY. If you have read my post about the HH half last month, the bridge KILLED me. I died on top of it, my soul escaped my body, I saw my body lying there on ground, hundreds of other runners  effortlessly running and jumping over my dead body and doing nothing. That's only a small exaggeration. But ultimately the incline is what wrecked my 2 hour goal. GRRRR…

Ever since I started consistently running outside (vs. in the gym) a little over 3 months ago I find myself more excited to run outdoors. I dread rainy, cold days more than ever now. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the gym for the free weights, machines and fantastic people watching (watching ridiculous meat heads attempt to lift extreme amounts of weight and flexing proudly in the mirror, as well as the heavily made-up college girls who spend 3 minutes on the ellipticals and then leave) but running outside is much more exciting and freeing. I'm also way faster. :) Over the past few months I've really wondered about the differences between treadmill running and road running.  Is one more effective than the other? Do they work the same muscles? Am I likely to reduce injury and recover more quickly doing one vs. the other? After some research, here's what I found... 

Obviously the first thing is the wind impact/resistance you get outside vs indoors.  Running on a treadmill is easier than running outside because the belt propels you along. The way to compensate this while running on a t-mill is to up the incline.  I do this normally, and find that on some t-mills it can get pretty difficult and on others you've really got to ramp it up to feel anything. I know this is extremely important to do because I definitely have days when the wind is literally pushing me back and it’s a struggle to more forward.  I learned that treadmill is good for speed training.  Sprint at a fast set pace for a minute or two then recover at a set slower pace.  One disadvantage of t-mill training is that its difficult to learn your pace. When you run outside you run on instinct and you change your pace based on how you feel. On a treadmill it's easy to simply set it on a pace and then run that pace for however long you planned to run instead of putting more effort in to really figure out your pace.  So obviously there are pros and cons to both.  I think the best thing to do is to mix it up a bit, but try to keep most of the running outdoors when you can.  

I'm hoping to get some good outside runs in soon. Next half is in 2.5 weeks! AHH!!!

Speaking of that I came across this hilarious article about a girl who recently ran a half in NYC and to get her through it she took a pic of a hot guy for each mile.  GENIUS!  Too bad my next half is an all women's one. HAHA.  But I'm not stopping there. Here's the link if you want to see the pictures.  They are pretty funny!
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/woman-takes-selfies-13-hot-guys-marathon-article-1.1726861