Treadmill Season

The dreadmill.  The human hamster wheel.  Satan's sidewalk.  Why would anybody run on a treadmill when they could run outside instead?

The answer to that question occurred to me last Sunday.  The roads near my house generally don't have sidewalks, so I run on the shoulder and jump off the road when a passing car refuses to move over and leave some room.  Last Sunday we had a heavy cold rain.  The road was narrowed by previous snow accumulations, and the rain had left large ponds in the shoulder.

This left me running in the middle of the road, as I prefer not to run in ankle deep ice water.  When a car would approach through the foggy rain, I'd leap over the flooded shoulder and find out that the snow on the side of the road was a sheet of solid ice.  Not the most fun I've ever had running.  Did I mention my shirt was soaked and chafing?

So I've spent several hours this week making peace with the treadmill in the company fitness room.  The key is to accept that there are some big differences compared to running outside, and take advantage of what a treadmill does well.

For example, I find it very difficult to hit moderate heart rates outside.  Walking briskly will get me up to about 120, while a slow jog usually gives 150 or more.  On the treadmill, a 4% incline at a brisk walking pace of 3.6-ish mph will put me right in the middle of the 130s.  Adjusting the speed up and down allows fine adjustment of effort level and resulting heart rate.  Even better, my pace can't drift on the treadmill.  Well, technically my pace can drift, but not for long as I'll fall off one end of the belt or the other and end up on YouTube under "treadmill fails".

So my plan is to use the treadmill several times during the work week to train at the moderate intensities that are difficult for me to find outdoors.  When I am able to run outdoors (mostly on the weekends), I'll focus on longer and/or more intense workouts, and hope to find that those are higher quality since I haven't exhausted myself with the weekday runs.

And if I'm really lucky, all that time at moderate effort will give me a big boost of aerobic capacity, and allow me to more easily find that elusive moderate effort when jogging outdoors.