Blog Post

Treadmill use

Posted by david tofel on December 8, 2010 at 4:29pm
Our city has been in the national news for snow over the last few days. Needless to say it's hard to run outside. So I'm stuck on a treadmill (which I hate).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can turn lemons into lemonade? (How to train on a treadmill)

Thanks.

David
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Comments

  • david tofel January 13, 2011 at 8:35am
    Great info John.  Thanks.
  • john hudak January 13, 2011 at 7:50am

    I did my first treadmill workout as part of the trail half marathon virtual training yesterday, and with the Garmin heart rate monitor, things went quite well.  i was able to keep my heart rate steady within the required zones, and able to adjust with the rate of the treadmill.  after i did the 40 minute run, i tried out walking in socks for 10 minutes, which was pretty nice (a guy across from me was doing his whole run in socks).  I found the Garmin 405cx also has a cadence setting, so with my foot pod, I was able to keep track of that as well.  The foot pod is similar to the nike pod (actually, it is exactly the same size and fits into my nike shoe), and allows you to track speed/distance/cadence without gps, which is sometimes preferable, due to satellite positioning in regards to trees and valleys.  Anyway, with the snow, I plan on doing a good amount of my training for the next couple of weeks on the treadmill, and will let you know how it goes.

     

    As an aside...I was looking on amazon at the manual non-electric treadmills, and wondering if anybody has tried any of those.  They seem inexpensive enough...although reviews of most seem like they aren't that well made.

     

    best,

    john

  • john hudak January 10, 2011 at 7:23am

    Happy New Year folks!

     

    With the snow, I have also been thinking about the gym treadmill as an alternative.  I just signed up for Eric's 12 week half marathon trail training, and it is based mostly on heart rate (as opposed to the speed/strength virtual camp I just finished, that was cadence based).  For Xmas, I bought a foot pod for my gramin 405cx, which would help track speed and distance on a treadmill; but since I am doing the heart rate training, I should be fairly fine.  It will just be a metter of adjusting the speed of the treadmill as opposed to adjusting my own speed...which is probably going to be okay for heart rate training, but I am not sure how well the cadence work would do.  If anyone has some knowledge about training on a treadmill, I think most people would love to hear about it.

     

    Michael Sandler, in his Barefoot Running book, suggests starting with 5 minutes, then adding a minute per workout; but this is for going barefoot.  He also suggestion only walking for the first two weeks.  After 2 weeks, he suggests jogging, beginning at 3 to 3.5 miles per hours, not increasing speed more than a tenth of a mile per workout.  During the second week, he says to add 1 to 3 percent grade.  This seems like fine advice for barefoot running winter practice, or for easy days.

     

    I imagine there are specific books (or maybe just a specific book) on treadmill training, but I haven't found one that really goes into depth.

     

    Eric?

     

    Best,

    John

     

    PS.  as for barefoot winter running, Michael Sandler uses the Lung-Gom-Pa meditation technique to "keep his feet and legs beet red and hot despite 5k running in a snowstorm.  There are a couple of pictures of him running barefoot in the snow.  I'm not sure about the meditation technique, but I have heard of the workshops people used to give where they taught you to walk on hot coals...so I imagine the same can be done for snow.  I still prefer my North Face Gore Tex running shoes for snow. 

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