Treadmills

Okay, so here's my story. About a year and a half ago, I wanted to lose weight. I decided that a treadmill would definitely help me to achieve that. I convinced my husband to buy a treadmill off kijiji for $250. We bought it from an elderly man who had had it for years and who could no longer use it because he had an amputated leg. Fine. We brought it home, and it's done the trick thus far.

This treadmill is VERY old. The belt slips under your feet (so much so that I've fallen off twice in the past week) and It's SO insanely loud (sounds like a dying cat) that you can't watch tv and can barely hear your ipod while running on it. You CANNOT push the treadmill to speeds higher than 6.5 mph because it slips underneath you so much so that you're being thrust forward or backwards with every step. You never know when it's going to slip next and you're going to miss a step & crash (what happened twice this week to me).

Now, this treadmill was FINE in the beginning. I used to only walk on the treadmill when I could, here and there. NOWADAYS, I'm running on it 3x a week, sometimes 4. Lately, I feel as though it's completely unsafe for me to be on there and I get nervous. Yesterday I had to stop 3x briefly during my run because It sounded as though it was going to go haywire and buck me off again. I've committed to a 5k with my sister in August and next June I'm aiming for running a half-marathon. Problem is, how am I ever going to be able to train on THIS treadmill? I feel like it's going to be an impossible task to progress as a runner with equipment that is this unreliable. It's like a marathon runner trying to run in flip flops. It's not going to happen. The equipment is not going to hold up.

I don't want to give up running AT ALL. Infact, it's my new found passion and I only want to keep growing. Unfortunately, my husband is as cheap as cheap gets (when it isn't something for him, and it's something that doesn't interested him aka a treadmill) and he even thought paying 250$ for this hunk of junk was "too much". He told me he'll get some silicone gel and try to get the "squeaks out" of the treadmill, but i feel like that's the least of my problems with it. How am I ever going to progress and run faster, longer, harder ... when my treadmill pukes out at 6.0 mph. I can't ever progress further than that.

Running outside is not an option for me (seeings as I want to train all winter long) and now I'm clueless as to what to do? Any suggestions on how to get my penny pinching husband to understand? it's a long shot