Treadmill vs. Outdoor running (Read 2008 times)

Save yourself a lot of trouble. Just have your treadmill shipped to zoom-zoom's. At least she would appreciate it.

Save yourself a lot of trouble. Just have your treadmill shipped to zoom-zoom's. At least she would appreciate it.

Ha, that's true! k

Is that generally true? Anybody know how accurate (or inaccurate) the damned things usually are? (And I use "damned" not as an expletive here, but as a wholly appropriate descriptive term).

Well when i first got mine, and admittedly it's a cheap one (well comparatively at least) i suspected it was slow but as i was a complete novice runner i put it down to lack of fitness. As time progressed and i started to run outside more and more it became more apparent to me that it was MUCH harder to run on the treadmill at the same paces i was using outside. For example if i felt i was running at 9:30 pace (=6.3mph) the treadmill was telling me i was running slower at about 5.8mph. If I set the the treadmill to run at what i thought was 9:30 then it felt much harder as i was really running at about 8:30 pace approx. Putting the arguments aside that Derek outlined above (as while they made running harder on the treadmill i didn't think they could account for that much disparity between the road and the treadmill!) So i looked into it a little on the 'net. I found a test which involved measuring the length of the belt on the treadmill and then counting the revolutions while you walked on it at a slower pace. Use a stopwatch, a bit of maths, and you could work out the distance you had actually run/walked and compare it to what the treadmill reported. Basically you can measure the accuracy of your treadmill fairly easily - and by all accounts they all vary by some degree. I guess you get more accuracy the more you pay. Perhaps. From what i remember, most treadmills actually run faster but some (including mine) run slower than they should. As long as you have a basic idea of what the inaccuracy factor is it's not too much trouble. Just don't rely on them too much. Cheers D

I don't mind running on a treadmill, although I prefer to run outdoors or on an indoor track. Two +'s for me with treadmill running are learning how to maintain a steady pace, and being able to focus on running form without any other distractions (like cars/dogs/!!!) Hope these tips help & good luck with your training! 1) maintain a good cadence to minimize the effect of the belt carrying your supporting leg 2) a treadmill is a much "softer" surface than the road - so be careful in your transition back to running outdoors. If you can handle short runs outside during the winter, that would probably help as well. 3) With your BP low to start with, you might want to drink extra water during your run - lack of circulating air may cause you to be more vasodilated than you would be if you were running outdoors.

You say you've tried different gloves, but have you ever tried putting any of those small instant heat packs inside your gloves? I don't know how comfy that would be, but just an idea. My brother works outside and they use them to keep their hands warm. You just squish the pack which breaks the contents inside causing I'm assuming some kind of chemical reaction, and the heat lasts about 6-8 hours. LL Bean has boots with these in them too to keep the toes toasty!

My hubby uses these things for cold weather cycling (which REALLY makes for cold hands and feet because of the wind chill of cycling speeds) and they work really well for him. He doesn't even wear wool socks, or anything, and his biking shoes are not at all insulated. k

I failed to mention that some of the heat packs are reusable too! The kind that my brother has only last for the 6-8 hours, then they're done!

I had something like this for warming up bottles when my son was little. The pack could be put into boiling water to "reset" it. Then it had a little metal rod affair that would activate the gel to make it heat up again. I didn't find that it got nearly as warm as those disposable packs my hubby uses, but in the long run they'd probably be cheaper. k

Wisecracks to other posters aside, I say if the treadmill helps you get your run in, then by all means, use it. Most runners hate the things because they are extremely boring. If you know you're not going to run in the cold, though, it seems to me you're better off to run on the treadmill. I know I've been guilty of using it to avoid the cold. I've also been guilty of using it to avoid the heat in the summer, as Tucson, AZ does not have the coolest summers on record. When my only option is to run at 4 am in 90 degree heat because that is the coolest point in the day (and in the summer, it is already daylight by then), or run on a treadmill or indoor track, I usually move indoors. From there I'll actually switch between the indoor track and the treadmill. Our indoor track is only about 145m (11 laps = 1 mile), so 5 miles (55 laps) on that thing is almost as bad as five miles on a treadmill. Half on each, however, is quite bearable.

Amen sisters!!! With a treadmill, there is never a good reason not to run, except a power failure.