Still plodding away and eyeing the treadmill

[Flamingo38]

Three weeks post-C25K graduation and I’ve kept up the running, three times a week for 30 mins. Can’t believe it! Now it’s getting dark very early though I’ve been struggling with midweek runs after work, even in streetlit areas I’ve had a couple of trips and stumbles, and I’m finding I run slower in the dark as I’m more hesitant. That combined with the fact I’m off on holiday for two weeks soon, has made me start eyeing up the treadmill in a gym near work, with a view to running indoors during the week for the next couple of months and running outdoors at weekends. Any advice on moving to treadmill running? Seems from reading other posts that it will feel quite different. Any tips on technique appreciated!

[cheekychipmunks Graduate10]

No tips from me Flamingo, but I’ll follow with interest as I’d like to know too. We’ve joined a gym too and I’ve barely ever used a treadmill either! Hope some treadmill experts can help us out. 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃🏃

[UpTheStanley Graduate10]

Well, there's no doubt it's boring to run for 30 minutes just looking at your reflection, or a wall, or Homes Under The Hammer on a silent TV with screwed-up sub-titles …… a decent playlist helps a lot .

On the other hand it's good for a number of things. On a good machine, it's entirely controllable and monitorable, so you can set it so you're running just a tiny bit faster than last time, or go a bit further at exactly the same pace as last time. Which means it's easy to set (hopefully achievable) incremental targets each week. You can run intervals knowing exactly how fast you're making yourself go for the quick bits, and how long you can push yourself for (and changing speeds, to a pre-determined pattern, eases the boredom). You don't have to chop your stride up and down kerbs, mark time while cars pass when you're crossing a road, dodge dogs / prams / kids on bikes, and you've got to be really daft to trip yourself up and fall (though I've managed that once ). And of course there's no wind, rain or sunburn to worry about.

I'm retired so can pick my moments to run outside when it's nice to do so, but through the winter I'm planning to do at least one session a week in the gym with the aim of gradually increasing the distance I can run at more than my usual Parkrun race, i.e. at 13 kph instead of 12 (or 12.5 if I'm going well). Yesterday that was only 500m, so there's a way to go there ……. and they'll obviously be quite short sessions for a while .

So not the same as running through the country, or along the prom, but much much better than reverting to the couch

Good luck!

[Flamingo38 in reply to UpTheStanley]

Thank you UpTheStanley, this is all really useful, especially the point about the treadmill enabling you to control and monitor your running and progress so precisely. Fingers crossed!

[Dexy5 Graduate10]

I used the treadmill on early c25k because of the weather. I’d only ever done fast walking before and I was a bit scared of letting go of the handles and just running. But it was fine.

Do a walk, building it up to a brisk walk for 5 mins. Then when you are warmed up , increase to your normal running speed. Do your brisk walk at the end too. Some people say put it on a slight incline to match outdoor running. You will find it a bit softer on the knees than the pavement too. Give it a go.

[Triolette]

I am a new graduate also looking to move to the treadmill as the days get shorter and colder so am watching this space too for any tips. Keep up the good work.