Meet Milly

I did it. I bought a treadmill. I'm so excited I could pee. Seriously, this is major news. Anyone who knows me knows of my hatred of treadmills (aka Dreadmills). Oddly, I've still pined for one for years assuming it'd be different at my house (vs. the stinky gym). And you know what... I WAS RIGHT!

Meet Milly (short for Millicent). Yes, I named her. She is a NordicTrack T5.7 and she was one sale:) She arrived stuffed in a box, waiting to break free! All said and done, the transformation from this...

to this...

wasn't too bad. The only BIG hang-up I experienced was during the very first step. I merely had to remove a screw from the rail, discard said screw, and secure the ground wire with a ground screw. I snapped the head off the screw. No joke. Popped the head right off it. I tried pushing it through with a screwdriver and a hammer but that didn't work. So I drove down to the local hardware store and bought a power drill. Yep, that's right, I now own power tools (look out)! With power drill in hand, I returned to the scene of the crime and attempted to drill the screw out. That didn't work. So I drilled a new hole right next to the offending screw. Sadly, the grounding screw is some crazy ass size only used in the Antarctic so NONE of the drill bits matched it. Never fear I said to myself. I'll just substitute a different screw that fits the new hole I drilled. I googled this idea first to make sure it'd be OK. After securing the ground wire (it only took 1.5 hours to complete step one) I was ready to tackle the rest of the "some assembly required". Which went relatively quickly. In all, I spent almost 4 hours 'creating' Milly. But she's so worth it!

Just look at her beautiful face. I put her in the guestroom, because quite honestly, no-one ever comes to see us. We've been in this house 2 years and we've had guests twice and one 'crash for the nighter'. I will need to make some adjustments to the room. I need to move the TV so I can see it better and I may have to do some rearranging (heck I may take the bed out all together and get one of those Aerobeds). One thing that is a must... a fan!!! Holy Nut does it get hot in there!

I ran my maiden mile (well, more like 1.5) and then tried out one of the pre-set programs. Central Park Walk. It sounded lovely, not sure what makes it a Central Park walk (other than I was watching When Harry Met Sally). Basically it was a 1.8 mile walk with inclines ranging form 0-4.5 at a speed of 3.5.

I'm excited to do my first 'real' run tomorrow morning. I still plan on running outside as much as possible, but Milly will surely help me keep my running goals this year when the weather and/or daylight don't cooperate:)

The wall in front of me is also super blank... what should I put there to motivate me to run like the wind?