Traditionally I choose never to run on treadmills for a number of reasons. The most obvious of which is the extreme lack of adventure. On a treadmill not only do run in place, you remove yourself from seeing, exploring and experiencing the great outdoors, a new city area, etc. Regardless of how scenic the location is that you are in, it’s far more interesting than the scenery from a treadmill.

That being said, I did in-fact use a treadmill this morning. Why, you may ask? I was in between my overnight job (working with 4 mentally handicapped adult males) in Roseville and a photography gig photographing motorcycle apparel in New Brighton. I needed to kill time and couldn’t afford getting super dirty/muddy so I went to a local Snap Fitness. After a very short warm up, I decided to try and see how long I could last at 11mph (the max speed of the machine). I was dumbfounded by what ensued. I not only ran the duration of time to complete a mile (5:27), I felt as though I could have finished a mile even quicker…. I never have ran like that in my life. The fastest time (and most recent, prior to today) I’ve ever been clocked at (8 years ago) was in the ballpark of an 5:58 mile.

To be completely honest, I don’t know if what just happened was a fluke or an error with the treadmill so I’ll be testing this on another treadmill on another day, and then if I get the same result will time a mile run on a track. My assumption is I had a random burst of energy as I’ve never experienced that before, but who knows? I have been training lately and maintaining a healthier diet than normal.

So this morning has been exciting and I accomplished a first: a sub 5:30 mile run, as well as a great leg work out using their weights and various machines afterwards.

-Kyle Heaser 11/11 at 11:11am and 11 seconds