Duh!! Me and treadmills are not a good combination!!

[Oldgirl]

So this morning off I went to the gym to try running on a treadmill so that I will be OK to use one when on holiday. Got one of the staff to show me around the machine and off I set was doing a nice steady jog, 15 minutes in and then my arm caught the emergency cord and pulled it off my Tshirt, everything stopped. Duh!!

So got going again and thought I would put an incline on this time got up to 5.5 and ran for 20 minutes at 5.5 with 2 short walks of a minute then speeded back up to 5.5 at 5.5. But how little distance I was covering was just beyond me! Anyway slowed down gradually and didn't get dizzy as had happened before. But I was amazed to see how many calories I had burned, 120 the first session and 170 the second, that can't be right I've only done 2.5K including warm up and cool down walking and its taken me forever. "You stupid woman" young guy came over who had shown me the machine workings, its not kilometres its miles, incline 5.5 is quite steep not the steepest mind but quite steep. So my question to you guys and girls is "What do I set the incline at for gradual hill/steep hill in future? I could have put it steeper but need to be more comfortable using it first.

[shelleymcb Graduate]

I did a "hill" session at the gym this week. treadmills there are in miles aswell. Id read that for a hill session you do 1-3mins at 0-1 incline (jog or run), then 30seconds to 2mins at 4-6 incline, running, so 5.5 is quite steep!

well done. I only managed to keep going for 20mins of 1min jog or walk with 45 second to 1min of running at 4 or 5 incline. that was enough for me ~ mind you, it is such a long time since Id been on the treadmill I forgot, till near the end, that they have a built in fan!!

my speed was between the 5.5 & 6 for my running bits & I found 4 incline demanding but not so much that I couldnt do it.

hope this makes sense. shelley x

[Oldgirl Graduate in reply to shelleymcb]

It does make sense shelley and thanks. Its a totally different feeling running on a treadmill to running outside. I had no concept on how steep it was but I have been doing hill work with my Jacobs's Ladder challenge and they don't come much steeper than that hill so its paid dividends. I won't say I enjoyed it but I no longer dread doing it and will have another go later this week too. I knew I had worked quite hard but I felt as if I could have pushed to a higher setting for shorter periods so now that I'm more comfortable using the treadmill I'll be happier to play about with the settings. I'm quite looking forward to my holidays now I know I'll be able to use the treadmill in the gym