Treadmill Surprises!
All year long, as I have reveled in walking outdoors, I've been down on treadmills. But now I need one. One thing I'll admit: I haven't broken a sweat walking outside the way I have the last 2 days on a treadmill!
I'm kind of encouraged by today's hour at the gym. Yesterday I couldn't finish 4 intervals of 10 minutes each at 15 degrees and 2 mph. My heart rate was over 160 and I quit before the last ten minutes was up. Today I finished 5 intervals of 10 minutes each at 15 degrees and 2 mph and my heart rate was around 140.
Tonight I'm going to golf for about 3 hours, walking with a pull cart at a hilly course, so I didn't want to overdo the treadmill today.
One of the biggest challenges is fitting workout time into each day. I'm looking at my calendar today and trying to schedule in 1-2 treadmill works every day. The gym's close by and is open plenty of hours, so early mornings and late evenings are possible. Have to check my walking schedule that I already worked out for May to substitute treadmill time, unless the hiking holds the potential to give me the cardio work I need.
Some of the things that surprised me about the treadmill are the following:

• It has a built-in TV that I can plug my iPod headphones into and watch while I walk. Wow, how high-tech is that?!
• It can count the minutes up or down; the trainer told me a lot of people get a psychological boost having it count down vs. up. Go figure.
• I can put my hands on a bar and it tells me my heart rate. And there's a display right in front of me the whole time that shows when I'm getting good cardio workout vs. too high (you wouldn't believe how red my face was when I stopped yesterday)
• I can pause it for 2 minutes and get a drink of water from my bottle or do some PT exercises to strengthen my knees in between sets
• There are actually picture windows to look out of and see the sunshine too

So once again, my prejudice against something has caught up with me and I've been proven wrong. You'd think I'd learn from this eventually, wouldn't you?