Tripped up during the morning run

Since I signed up for dailymile.com and my friend has been posting his (long) daily runs, I've been encouraged to add a couple more miles a week to my workouts. The problem is I don't really have extra time to devote to running and I don't want to cut down on weight training, biking, yoga or the elliptical machine.

I thought I would start adding in a few 10-minute mile runs a couple more days a week. It would pick up the pace from my average of 12:30 a mile for long distance runs and I figured it might help me increase my speed for the 5K I am signed up to do on Memorial Day Weekend.

I started out the run at 5.3 mph for a couple minutes and then upped it to 6.3 mph - and that's when I started to encounter a slight problem. See a few months ago I bought a pair of $100 yoga pants. I love them because they are comfy for yoga, weight training, bicycling at the gym and using the elliptical trainer.

When I first bought the pants, my friend told me to consider buying something with a drawstring since I've been on a workout/health food kick. She warned me that if I continued to tone up and lose weight, the pants would not stay up for more than a couple months. Now for the last couple of weeks, I've noticed they've gotten a bit loose but I just pull them back up and go on with the workout. It hasn't been much of a problem - until this morning.

As I sped up the treadmill to 6.7, the yoga pants started to slip down at a bit more rapid pace...and fortunately for me, I was the only person in the gym at the time (although there are security cameras, which the staff hopefully never review.) I held my pants up with one hand as I tried to slow down the treadmill to a walking pace with the other. In the meantime, as I was flailing around and trying not to lose my balance, my new headphones kept getting caught on the treadmill and then I had to struggle not to trip on those. Now a normal person would probably have given up the run at this point, or at least settled for a slower pace. But I was already running late with my workout since I woke up a little late, so I decided to hike the pants back up and speed it up again. I repeated the process a few more times until I completed my mile in 10:45.

I'll have to give my friend a chance to say she told me so. And on my way home from work tomorrow, I have plans to stop at the Gap outlet to get a new pair of workout pants that will hopefully stay up as I run. I need them before my Friday morning run. The $100 yoga pants are going to be relegated to yoga and other light workouts.