Help! My long run fatally wounded my treadmill

Duck_Puddle

I run a painfully slow (but getting marginally faster) 20-25 miles/5-6 hrs a week almost exclusively on the treadmill for safety & other reasons. My treadmill shuts itself off at 100 minutes (which seems to be pretty common), so I've kept my long run to 100 minutes for that reason alone. Today I decided it was time to just restart the treadmill after it shut off and keep going. So I did. I had a lot of gas left in the tank - my treadmill....not so much. At 105 min the motor started groaning, at 110 minutes it started groaning louder & more crankily, and although I was looking forward to a 2 hr long run, I stopped at 115 minutes before it exploded (it was starting to smell funny).

I did purchase probably the cheapest treadmill available (it was <$350) and I can get it repaired under warranty - but I'm thinking maybe my $12 treadmill isn't really capable of handling what I'm asking it to do. I'm working towards doing a half-marathon in the fall and my long runs will extend beyond 3 hrs eventually (unless I mysteriously develop a massive burst of speed). I don't want to have to worry about frying the motor every time I go for a long run - so I'm thinking it might be time to upgrade. Does anyone have experience with putting long hours on a personal treadmill at a running pace (albeit a very slow one)? Any recommendations for a brand/model that can handle this kind of use without burning out (Landice is unfortunately not in my budget at the moment)?