Yesterday I had my third treadmill run at the gym and with three runs in the first five days since I became a member, I think I’m getting a reasonable amount of value for the money. If you want to go to the gym but don’t want to go there when it’s crowded, it looks like Friday evening is a good time to do it. I only counted two other people in the same room as me, and it can take at least 30 people.

I’ve made a couple of interesting observations when comparing running outside to running on a treadmill. It’s much easier to control the speed and hence also the my heart rate because I can control the speed of the ground. This means that I run a bit slower, but for a much longer time. When running outside, I was sprinting around for about 12 minutes before I had to stop, now I’m pushing it towards 30 minutes and hope to manage an hour while still keeping my heart rate at an acceptable level before the end of February next year.

My main problem now is my shoes. Since my old shoes had been used outside, I had to get new shoes. For the first time in my life I went to a professional running shoe store and had them tell me exactly what kind of shoes I needed. They did some minor adjustment to the sole to make the left shoe balance my let foot properly. Yes, it was a bit more expensive than just picking up a standard pair, but if it prevents injury, it’s definitely worth it.

New shoes usually means blisters and I got some huge ones last time. Yesterday they burst and I actually felt the splatter when they did. Nice.