This site will tell you how much time you've spent (wasted?) watching TV

This might be scary, but if you go to this website and start typing in TV shows, it'll calculate the total amount of time you've spent watching. You can keep adding shows to get an updated total of the number of days/hours/minutes.

As I started entering "Star Trek," "Star Trek: The Next Generation," etc., the number at the top got staggeringly large, so I decided to start over and input only shows that I watched over the past year. That got the number down to a more comprehensible 18 days, 12 hours, 16 minutes, which is still kind of stunning.

Of course, the website counts each episode of an hour-long show as 60 minutes (not sure where that 16 minutes came from), whereas I rarely watch anything live, tending to run most things through TiVo so I can skip commercials, or streaming shows on my Kindle Fire or RoKu where again there aren't any commercials.

Plus, 5 days and 20 hours of my total were spent on "The Shield" and "Justified," both of which I watched exclusively via Amazon Prime and mostly while running on the treadmill in the winter, so I don't think that time was "wasted" in any sense of the word.

Rain, rain, make up your mind!

Today was one of those annoying days when the local weather just couldn't make up its mind about what it wanted to do. The weather.com forecast called for rain starting around noon, so I figured I should've been able to get my long run (~90-100 minutes) in even though I couldn't start until 10 a.m. due to volunteering in my kid's elementary school class.

Within ten minutes, it was misting. Well, a little mist was nothing to worry about. Practically two-thirds of the year here in the Pacific Northwest is misty. Besides, while some of the sky looked ominously dark, other parts still had blue patches poking through the clouds. I did fish out my ziplock bag and stuck my smartphone inside, just in case.

Instead of abating, however, the rain came down more steadily. I've run races in the rain, but I don't necessarily find anything exhilarating about it, especially when there are alternatives. So I headed home and finished that outside run at 3.57 miles. I grabbed my car keys and my Kindle Fire and drove over to the gym.

This would work out all right, I decided. Each episode of "The Wire" runs about an hour, which would be enough time to run 7 miles at a pretty easy pace, and get me over 10 miles for the day. (I've been making my long runs more like 12+ mile recently, but a little shorter of one wouldn't kill me.)

Okay, so at the gym there are three treadmills (out of seven) that work well for watching on my Kindle Fire; the others end up having the screen at an uncomfortably low angle. One of the three is currently out-of-order. One of the remaining two was being used. I got on the other one. Now, this is the newest treadmill in the gym, and it is the only one that can decline (in addition to incline). That's a neat feature, but it also makes it considerably louder than the other treadmills. I mean, I'm not a heel striker, and normally on the treadmill, I'm not terribly loud. But on this one, it was CLONG CLONG CLONG CLONG - 180 times per minute! I'm not sure but I think I drove away the older woman who was walking on the treadmill next to me....

Anyway, after 30 minutes and 3.5 miles, it seemed like it was clearing up outside. I paused "The Wire" and got ready to leave the gym and finish the last 3 miles of the day outside.

Which of course is when it started to run again.

Argh!

Well, I did get to finish that episode, and to try the decline setting, as I ran the last 3 miles at -2%. CLONG CLONG CLONG CLONG....

Oh noes, could TV and treadmills be a bad combo?!?

Obviously from the title of this blog and its pure focus on TV and running, it's clear that I like watching TV while on the treadmill. In fact, I have been known to stay on the treadmill "for just another episode ... "

But here's a sports doc who says TV and treadmills might be a bad combination. Bottom line:

If you're able to watch TV without craning your neck, holding on to the sides of the treadmill, or skimping on intervals, then you're probably OK running while watching. But otherwise, you're better off turning off the tube. 

The reasoning is that watching TV can force you to crane your neck at a bad angle, it can reduce your calorie burn if it makes you grab the handrails, and it can leave you in a rut where you just keep running at the same pace.

Actually, this all sounds right. I'm definitely cognizant of the first point. There are a couple of treadmills at the gym I use that have a straight edge along the top of the display that works perfectly for draping my Kindle Fire, with the back of the cover acting as a counterweight to the tablet. The other treadmills would all require that I rest the Kindle Fire along the bottom tray, which in turn would force me to look down too sharply.

I don't hold the handrails, so the second point isn't applicable to me.

And as for the third point, I don't watch TV when I'm doing speed sessions on the treadmill. (I try to do speed work on the track, but if it's nasty weather, I'll run indoors.) It's either an audiobook, music, or nothing.

So, yeah, I guess TV and treadmills could be a bad combination. But maybe not too bad....