Treadmill Workouts!

It’s December 14th and unless you’re a total whack job, running outside is probably out of the question for the next few months.  As with most runners and triathletes, I tend to stay away from the treadmill if I can run outside.  Lately, I’ve passed out treadmill workouts to people when they ask, but figured I’d share them with anyone who chooses to read this post.

Note:  If you enjoy running at the same speed, same flat incline, in place, for hours on end, then stop reading here and close this browser window.

Note 2:  If you live somewhere that is perpetually warm, F&^% Off and don’t read this.  Go run outside.

Workout 1:

This one is kind of a speed workout, but call it what you want.  I hope that you know what your 10K pace is.  This is the pace that you can hold for exactly 6.2 miles.  If the race were 7 miles, you wouldn’t make it.  Figure out what that pace is.  Also, I highly recommend a heart rate monitor.  Most treadmills nowadays ‘sense’ all the major brands out there and will display your info on the dashboard.  Here’s how it goes:

Do a 5 minute warm up jog, then start the treadmill over with a new workout.  Get the pace up to your 10K pace immediately.  Let’s say that’s 9.0.  you’re going to run 1.0 miles at this pace.  At 1.0, bring your speed down to a walk, like 4.0 and bring your heart rate back to 140.  As soon as you’re at 140 (usually a minute or two), bump the speed back up to 9.1 and run .9 miles.  Recover at a walk till 140 BPM, and then 9.2 and .8 miles.  Continue this pattern of bumping up .1 MPH for every .1 miles you decrease your distance until you’re doing your last .1 mile at 9.9.  Finish by a slow jog for a couple minutes into a walk for a few minutes.  Time and distance of this workout, completely depend on your base speed and recovery times, but figure in the neighborhood of 6.5-7.0 miles and 1 hour to complete.

Workout 2:

This one is definitely a hill workout.  Again, know your 10K pace.  Let’s say it’s 9.0 again.  Do your 5 minute warm up and start the treadmill over.  Bring the speed up to .5 MPH less than your 10K pace, in this case we’ll say it’s 8.5.  You’re going to start at 5:00 at 8.5 at 1% incline, this is set #1.  After the 5 minutes, bring it down to 0% incline for 1 minute.  After 1 minute, bring the incline up to 2.0% and go for 4 minutes.  Bring the incline down to 0% for 2 minutes.  Then 3 minutes at 3%, 3 minutes at 0%.  2 minutes at 4%, 4 minutes at 0%, 1 minute at 5%, 5 minutes at 0%.  After your last 5 minutes on flat ground, begin a 5 minute cool down that ends in a slow walk.  You’ll be gassed, I hope.

I hope you figured out the pattern on increasing incline, and decreasing time at incline while increasing flat time.  Adjust interval lengths and inclines to your comfort level, but this should be a challenging workout.

Workout 3:

Nothing really fancy here.  This is good for establishing your HR and thresholds.  Think of this as a 5 mile test.  Say your 10K pace comes out to 9.0 MPH, i.e. 41:20 is your 10K time.  Do your 5 minute warm up, and start over with a fresh workout.  Run 1 mile at 8.6, noting your average HR.  After a mile, bump it up to 8.8 and do another mile, noting your heart rate.  For mile 3, bump it up to 9.1, so a little faster than you’d normally run a 10K, and note your heart rate.  For mile 4, come back to 8.8, and mile 5 back to 8.6, noting your HR on each mile coming back down.  Keep a record of these numbers if you like, but see how the corresponding miles compare in HR.  As you get progressively stronger, this workout will do a couple of things.  You’ll see yourself able to go faster at a certain HR, and also you’ll see your trailing HR’s more closely match the beginning miles.  As always, end with a 5 minute cool down.

Workout 4:

This is my favorite one just because it’s so easy to track in my mind what I’ve done in the past.  The mental challenge is the best part, at least for me, because treadmills are so easy to control.  Forget your heart rate monitor here, it’s just unhealthy.  Start with your 5 minute warm up, and then start the treadmill over.  Again, using 9.0 as a base 10K pace for this example, start at 1.0 MPH under, so 8.0.  Run at 8.0 for a minute and bump it up to 8.1.  With each successive minute, bump your speed up .1 MPH.  You hear about going till failure in weight lifting all the time, so now it’s time to introduce it to the treadmill.  Keep adding pace every minute until you can’t go anymore.  I’m talking to the point of “Holy crap I’m going to pass out if I run any faster or any longer.”  I applaud you if you can make this one last for 20 minutes, you’re an insane human if you can go 25.  Any longer than 25 and your base pace is out of whack and you need to re-evaluate that pace.  End this with a 5 minute cool down jog and walk.

There you go.  Four different workouts to help you pass the time on the treadmill.  Get creative with them.  Alter times, intervals, distances, etc.  Do you have any you like to do?  For God’s sake, SHARE THEM!!!  We all hate passing the time on a treadmill!  Good luck this winter.

Michael

Michael


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