Tag Archives: treadmill

02.12.14
by

3 Ways to Beat the Treadmill Blahs

treadmill

Source: Flickr


It doesn’t look like this cold weather is letting up anytime soon, so for those of you stuck on the treadmill, like me, I thought I would post some of my favorite ways to beat the treadmill blahs.

  1. Listen to music or watch TV.
    I can sometimes zone out to my treadmill playlist. There are a few songs, in particular, that actually make me run harder and make me feel like I’m flying. I also have a tendency to mouth the words along while listening to music in the gym, which may be awkward. I don’t really care. Anything to get through the miles!

    But I get visually bored sometimes when just listening to music, and it gets me out of my zone. It helps to close my eyes, but that’s just not safe on a treadmill. (Although I do it for short periods.) In those times, it may better to put on a TV show or movie. The treadmills at my old gym had headphone plugs right in the machines where you could pick which of the TVs to listen to. My new gym is older and doesn’t have such technology. They make you tune into radio stations to listen to the TVs. I don’t even know how you do that in this day and age, but the average age at my gym is like 90, so…

    Sometimes I will put a movie on through my phone. I really like running to “Tangled” because the music helps me get that “I’m flying” feeling with the bonus of having something to visually focus on. Probably other musicals would do this too, but “Tangled” is the only one I have stored on my phone.

  2. Play games with yourself.
    I mentioned this on Monday, but one thing I like to do is play a counting game. I start at 1 and count to 100. If I look at the treadmill display before I get to 100, I automatically have to up my speed 0.1. However, if I get to 100 without looking at it, I have the option to raise my speed 0.1, lower my speed 0.1, or stay the same. Then I start the count over. It’s a great way to pass the time and keep you from staring at that pesky clock!
  3. Change something. Anything.
    Another thing I will do is change something every minute. Sometimes it’s my speed. Sometimes it’s my incline. Sometimes things go up. Sometimes things go down. It keeps the workout from getting too monotonous, but can be kind of draining because you have to constantly stare at the timer (which is why I prefer the counting game).

    If you are running with music, change something at the beginning of every new song. If you are running with the TV, change something for each commercial.

Speaking of treadmill blahs, has anyone ever tried this app out? I don’t have an iPad or a laptop I could haul to the gym, but it seems kind of interesting.

06.18.13
by

Week of 6/10/13 – 6/16/13

Nike+ isn’t showing my Sunday run on the graph, once again, but the totals are right.

week of 6/10/13 to 6/16/13

After taking Monday as a rest day, I knew I needed to head out on Tuesday. However, driving home from work, my car told me it was 96 degrees outside. Ninety. Six. Not counting the 50% humidity. I didn’t want to die, so I opted for the treadmill, which I suspect I will be living on through July and August. It’s been a couple months since I had ran on the treadmill, so I had forgotten how much easier it is. Pacing is no problem since it controls your speed. I don’t have to worry about hills. No wind. I also forgot that it’s boring. Especially when Roomba ate your headphones and you haven’t gotten a chance to fix them. It didn’t matter. I blew through my 28 minutes I was supposed to run for Couch to 10k and did 33 instead. Still only 2.5 miles since I paced myself slow on purpose. On a 1% incline, I started at 4 mph and increased 0.1 every 2.5 minutes, ending up at 5.1 after 30 minutes. Then I ran 2.5 minutes at 6 mph, using the last 30 seconds as a jogging cool down. That workout would have destroyed me three months ago, but it was a piece of cake now. Although the workout room didn’t feel a whole lot cooler than outdoors, and I had sweat literally flinging off of me as I ran.

Wednesday was even hotter than Tuesday with the heat index topping out around 100 degrees, so I took a rest day and went out on a date with myself to see “Spirit of the Marathon II” for inspiration. The documentary follows seven people running the 2012 Rome Marathon and leading up to it. Inspirational, it was! I don’t know if I’ll ever run a full marathon, but I’m convinced I need to do it in Rome. (Paris would be cool, too, but I’ve never been to Rome.) I got a bit of a laugh when one of the runners went to buy some “runner torture devices”, aka the foam roller and the stick. It also managed to make me tear up in parts. Just see it if you get the chance.

I wanted to get up early Thursday morning to fit in a mile, but my soleus was still kind of hurting. Will it ever heal? I went to see She & Him at the Ryman Thursday evening, so it turned into another rest day. Probably for the better, since I really need my calf to get better.

Friday I drove up to Clarksville to visit my parents and got up early on Saturday to put in 6 miles of intervals. Strava had a challenge to run a 10k that day, so that is what I did. For the first mile, I did 2 minutes running, then 2 minutes walking. For the second and third miles, I increased to 3 minutes running. Then went up to 4 minutes running for the fourth mile. I wanted to increase again for the last full mile, but I was on a section of road where I was running into the sun and was low on water, so I ended up doing more of a 1:1 ratio again.

10k splits

Overall, I finished 10k in 1:17, which isn’t too bad considering it’s only the second time I’ve gone that distance. Hopefully I will be a little faster at the actual race in a couple weeks.

strava any way 10k finisher

My legs weren’t feeling too bad, so I went out on a recovery run on Sunday evening. I didn’t have an exact distance/time in mind, other than I wanted to do at least a mile and if I did a full 5k that would be pretty cool. But I didn’t want to push myself. It was supposed to be recovery, after all. I paced well on the first mile, but sped up after that and wore myself out after 2.8 miles. So just short of the 5k, I walked for about 3 minutes before finishing it out with a light jog. Still, I ran for over 32 minutes straight. Does that make me a Couch to 5k graduate since the last day is to run for 30 minutes straight? Even though I didn’t really run a full 5k? I’m counting it. On to the 10k!