Yeah, I tried out the 'mill today and it's certainly not as nice as running outside. I found I had to readjust the speed to match whatever music I was listening to -- just a step up or down as the song changed. Otherwise, I had trouble keeping pace with the belt. It was interesting to see which songs that I chose made me push myself to go a little faster, and which ones gave me a bit of a rest.
Also, it is really hard to skip on a treadmill. This week's built-in strength-builder was skipping, and I had to speed up so that I could skip without breaking stride. It was weird.
Obviously if I had my choice (today excepted, because NEW TOY) I'd rather run outdoors. But if the choice is between running indoors and not running at all because of kidsponsibilities, obviously a treadmill is the solution to that problem. Otherwise I'm afraid I'd be tempted to let my training lapse, and who wants that? Nobody, that's who.
Next week is my last week of training with my couch-to-5K program. I don't know if I'm going to pass the final test (run 5K in under 50 min). But I guess that's why I gave myself 'til October to run a 5K race -- so if I'm not there yet, I've got plenty of time to keep working on it.