Before we get to the meat of today’s post, here’s a brief glance at what would be your dessert! Registration is OPEN for the next Another Mother Runner Retreat: Run + Refresh! Join us in Ogden, Utah, May 17-20, 2018 for a little AMR R & R! Need to want to know every last detail? Click here.
And now, on with our post…
For most mother runners, the weather outside isn’t frightful yet — but we can feel the snow and ice and cold lurking. Before winter gets here, Coach MK Fleming offers up some tips for terrific treadmill training runs:
You have probably heard runners complain about “dreadmills” and “insteadmills.” I don’t have patience for either term – treadmills are fantastic tools and should be embraced.
I live in Denver and it’s a toss-up which is more brutal around here — winter or summer! If you care about your training and have your sights on a particular finish time, you have to embrace ALL training tools at your disposal. If you don’t have a treadmill handy, you’re doing yourself a disservice and have one tool fewer in your runner’s toolbox. Here’s why:
- Treadmills tend to be located in controlled environments – rain, snow, and crazy heat/humidity can’t affect your run indoors! Treadmills also tend to be conveniently located near toilets, which is super helpful if you’re under-the-weather or pregnant.
- The biggest setback to training plans is injury. Even if weather is fine, road conditions may not be. I’ve learned to be wary of sunshine the day after a snowstorm; melting snow has icy layers underneath. If it’s icy outside, think carefully about the risks. If you wipe out, you could set your training back several weeks; that is far less likely to happen on a treadmill.
- When it’s stupid hot outside, do you really want to risk running in 95+ degree heat and dehydrating or getting heat stroke? Heat stroke recovery requires two nights in the hospital for acute care, then two months to a year to fully recuperate. That’s longer than my wildest training plans!
- Does your race have hills? Even better, is it one big screaming downhill like the Revel series, Big Cottonwood, or Jack and Jill? Unless you plan to roll down that hill in a barrel, you need lots of practice running downhill; gravity only does so much. If you don’t live on the side of a mountain, you need access to a treadmill with serious incline/decline functionality. The ability to create a 3 percent grade is all you need.
- Are you an ultrarunner? Those tend to be on hilly trails. Same logic here as above – unless you live right next to a steep, technical trail you can easily access several times per week, you’re going to need to embrace a treadmill with an incline/decline function. Otherwise, I have no idea how you expect to adequately prepare.
- For many of my clients with demanding jobs, small children, or visual/auditory impairments, the treadmill in their basement is a solid guarantee that the run will get done. Be it at 4 a.m. before the kids get up or at midnight after that 1-hour video conference (that actually took 3 hours).
If you want more gems of knowledge from Coach MK, check out her Treadmill Tips! And if you’re looking for more wisdom about treadmills from other runners, this blog has you covered.
But we want to hear from you! Are you a treadmill-only runner? A treadmill-never runner? Or somewhere in between?
Intellectually, I agree with what you are saying. My husband trained for Boston on the TM. Personally, I absolutely hate running indoors. I will run in heat, in bitter cold, in rain, in snow, even sometimes on icy roads to avoid the TM.
In the winter I pretty much train 85% of my week on the treadmill, with my long run outside, weather permitting. I want to get all of my “daily” workouts done in the early morning, before the kids wake up and feel much safer being at home when it’s dark out. I’ve tripped too many times! Also, I can take a break in my run to wake the kids up, or do another task that needs to be done. I’m not sure I would even be able to train without my treadmill! I love it. It’s a life saver!
I have always been anti-treadmill, but road construction the last several months has made the normal 5 minute drive to my favorite place to run a 30 minute drive, each way. Rather than get up an hour earlier, I have embraced the treadmill for almost all of my weekday runs. Heart rate training has helped so much with this. I’ve learned to stay away from comparing my pace and feel outside to that of my treadmill runs. I put a show on my iPad and cover up the speed display. I just watch the time and tick the speed up or down as needed to stay right below 140bpm. I can see definitely improvement as I get faster indoors while maintaining my heart rate. It’s been really good for me and opened me up to the treadmill as a viable alternative. Plus, my daughter LOVES waking up and coming in the ‘workout room’ with me to get in some exercises of her own. I love being able to set that good example for her.
I actually love my treadmill. We have one that is an incline and decline trainer and it is paired with google maps, so I can run anywhere in the world and I get to experience the elevation changes (roughly) as well, without needing to think about it. I can watch the scenery pass by without dealing with unpleasant temperatures or wind, and my daughter knows where to find me when she wakes up if daddy is out running.
Treadmill runner for speed work for sure!