Mother Nature: Knock it off so I can run outside.

This week has been another week stuck on the treadmill because Mother nature feels like she has something to prove by either making it:

1) Too cold to run safely outside unless frostbite is the new black
2) Snow like a *BLEEP* with high winds and white-out conditions.

Maybe she's trying to make up for the fact that I ran 4.5 miles in this outfit on December 2nd:

My house is under perpetual construction.  It's my cross to bear.

At least I can wear similar outfits when I run on the treadmill.

Wednesday was an easy run day (6 miles), and I feel like those are getting easier to do mentally.  Six slow miles doesn't seem so torturous anymore, especially not with good treadmill TV on in front of me.  The tempo run I did today wasn't any easier on the old mental state than last week; however, I tried something a little different with that 8 mile tempo, 6 of which are supposed to be actually run at tempo pace:

I split it into two 3 milers with a 400m walk in between each 3 mile segment.

Part of me feels like I totally wimped out, and the other part of me feels super-duper smart by figuring out a way to survive this workout on the treadmill.  I had to split this into two smaller, achievable runs, because when I got up I had absolutely NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in running this run on the treadmill.  I wanted to run outside so I could run faster than I do on the treadmill.  By my outside was full of white stuff and 20 mph winds, so, like Mother Nature, I only had two choices:

1. Skip the workout entirely and be a total and complete *BLEEP*
2. Make the workout work for me.

Obviously, option #2 won out, which I consider a smallish victory.  However, I still need to kick up the speed (which I did compared to last week) on these runs when I do them on the treadmill.  I take a small measure of comfort in the fact that it looks like I didn't stop at all when you look at my Garmin graphs:

And I only ended up doing 7.5 miles because I had to get to work and my dogs were circling the treadmill in a rather menacing fashion, waiting for me to get off it (they have an intense desire to lick my sweat, which is intensely gross.  But they're dogs.  They lick a lot grosser things).  

Looks like I'm going to have to work on not taking that break in the middle as well as kicking up the speed.  That is, if Mother Nature doesn't decide to back off on this whole "Oh gee it's, like, winter or something" thing and I'm forced into another week of treadmill running.  

Tomorrow the treadmill isn't an option--it's outside for a slow 20 miler.  I'll let you know if Mother nature behaves or not.