Treadmill Advice

[RunSamRun]

I completed my Couch to 5k whilst overseas & did all of my runs outside. Given I was moving around a fair bit, I had to be creative about where I did the runs; hotel grounds, beaches, parks, city centres etc.....necessity is the mother of invention!! However, it's now so hot I'm trying to use hotel gyms to benefit from air con & have started to use a treadmill. As this is new for me, I'm unsure what speed & gradient I should set the treadmill to so that I get my 30 min run completed so that it replicates outside running. Any advice on how to approach this would be appreciated.

[WatcherF Graduate]

Hi Sam.

First of all this will be a bit of a long reply so apologies for that in advance.

Before I start I'd ask you two questions:

- Do you know how FAR you run?

- Is it a modern treadmill?

We'll come back to those in a moment.

Right. You could go down the mathematical route. If you know how FAR you run then you can work out your average speed. If you are running 5k then that's an average speed of 10kph. Whatever distance you are running in 30 mins just double it to get the kph. Just set the treadmill at this and off you go (make sure the treadmill is set to the right speed setting. If you calculate in kph but the treadmill is set to MPH then you will end up running one and a half times faster than you expected).

Then there's the intuitive approach. Your body will, by now, have found a normal rhythm so just start running and increase the treadmill speed until in feels comfortable. This is the route i would take myself as people would tend to turn the maths route I to a target, which isn't the point here.

In both cases, if it gets tough, just slow it down a touch. It's just like running on a road but you have a button to control your speed....it's still up to you how fast you go.

Now onto gradient. Some new treadmills have programmes that will automatically change the gradient randomly to simulate running in the real world. Just ask someone at the gym whether these do and how to do it. This means you don't have to think about it yourself. The treadmills I use at the gym allow you to override the programme too so, again, if it gets too tough you just lower the gradient yourself.

Remember, it's all about making your runs enjoyable so I'd just give it a go and make adjustments as you go. Maybe avoid targets like speed and distance until you are comfortable with the machines and take it from there.

Hope that helps.

[RunSamRun Graduate in reply to WatcherF]

Thank you for this. As I'm travelling around the treadmills I'll be using will all be different. I haven't come across one which is able to change the gradient automatically, that sounds ideal though. I set the pace at 7 & the gradient at 2 today - this seemed ok but I had no idea whether this was a reasonable pace & gradient or not. It logged the distance in miles & it was just under 3, so I can work out the km. It seems easier to me using a treadmill than running outside which is why I wondered if the gradient / speed should be higher. I agree with you, if I just stick to the 30 mins & enjoy it that's the main goal. Thanks again.