I survived.

Nine miles are do-able. Treadmills are also do-able. But a nine-mile run should really only ever be done on God's paved earth.

For that exact reason, I seldom do such a long run on the hamster wheel. Sometimes, though, sub-freezing temperatures and a lack of daylight necessitate indoor running, and sometimes those times are times when your training schedule says you are supposed to run nine miles. Like, for example, this Monday.

So this is what I did to get through it:
1) Listen to Alanis Morissette at unreasonable volumes via my little ear buds that, by mile seven, were not even staying in my ears anymore because, apparently, the insides of my ears were sweating profusely.
2) Set the grade to 1-2%. Running uphill is hard, I know. But just a tiny grade on the treadmill adjusts your stride to more closely resemble how you run outdoors. I have no idea where I learned to do this, but it's brilliant.
3) Take it easy. Taking a challenging pace on a long treadmill run is psychological suicide. The trick to staying on the thing for over an hour is zoning out--escaping into your mind where you compose an ongoing manifesto on the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I picked a pace I don't have to think about and stuck with it through mile 7. Magic, I tell ya.
5) Forget about the mile meter until I was far enough along to get excited about how close I was to finishing. ...or at least tried to. Staring at the thing is categorically un-conducive to zoning out.
4) Work in "aid stations." My goal was 3 miles in the first stretch, but I kept going to 4.5 because I was feeling good. The second half required a break in the middle. The trick to the breaks is to make them as short as possible so you don't have to start from scratch with your heart rate--just get a drink, use the restroom, or stretch out the set of muscles that's bugging you. If you think it's whimpy to take breaks, I challenge you to a run-off. Nine miles on the treadmill. Let's go.