Hmmm. I would think it would be easier on a treadmill....

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I've been on the treadmill for 2 hours before...he's going less than 30 minutes more. If he had to stay on for 4 hours to finish, then I think that would be hard. Granted, it's a strange thing to do (run a marathon on a tread), but, he could watch his miles trickle down, have water right there, music the whole time, or even a movie. I don't know--it's an accomplishment for sure, but like I said, it's not like it was 4 hours...that would just be pure suicide.

kittycat

Kittykat, it is one thing running on a treadmill for 2 hours, another thing totally to run a marathon in 2:23 which equates to 11 mph average speed. Now I can assure you that most of the folks on this forum can barely last for 5 min going at 11 mph on a treadmill. I know that I can last 90 min on a treadmill just crusing, but to even run at my outdoor marathon race pace of 8.5 to 9.5 mph for more than 45 min straight is difficult.

This guy is a stud. Hats off to him. You can't even compare your 2 hours to what this guy achieved in 2:23 !

Do they do these things with the treadmill flat (ie. no elevation)?

I've found that I can run at least 60 seconds per mile faster on a flat treadmill than I can outside, at the same HR. It I add like 2-4 degrees of elevation it feels much more realistic. But every so often it is fun to go to the gym and do a 30 minute workout at 11mph. :) On a flat treadmill it feels like the motor is doing all the work, you just have to kick up you heels...

Chris

Did a quick Google...


THE MOST IMPORTANT RULES

• A standard treadmill exercise fitness machine should be used for the attempt.
• The setting of the machine is at the discretion of the competitor.
• The venue for the record attempt must be open to the general public for the duration of the attempt
• Rest breaks may be taken at the discretion of the competitor but they are included within the time for the attempt. The clock does not stop. For example, if the 24 hrs-event starts at 11 am on Monday, it must finish at 11am on Tuesday.
• For the distance records (100 km, 100 miles etc.), two timekeepers should time the attempt with highly accurate stopwatches.
• A calibration certificate for the treadmill and two signed statements by at least two sports referees should be provided.

http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/treadmill.html

you missed the point.

my point is the total time...obviously he's going fast as hell to complete in that time. my point is that it would be even harder to stay on for the normal person--like 4 hours or something. I think doing it in 2.5 is much more tolerable than doing it in 4 or more. of course it was hard, but he was only on for so long, which no doubt had to be helpful...that's the point.


and for the record, I did plenty of runs at a 8.5 pace or higher--it was about 4 years ago, and I've slowed since then, but I did it about 5 times in preparation for marathons during winter training. This is much slower than this guy I realize.

Kittykat, actually I did not miss the point at all. You can call it what you want, but it is way tougher to do a marathon at 2:23 pace than at 4 hour pace. Not like I would know, what 2:23 is like, but when I did run 2:48 it was WAY tougher than shuffling out a 4:08 in an Ironman. The 2:48 was pain from wire to wire. The 4:08 Ironman was a "comfort run", in that I did not mentally push like I did in the fast marathon.

Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for people doing marathons in 4, 5 and 6 hours for being out there and bettering themselves, but I cannot accept that they have actually having a tougher time out on the course than the top guys and gals running on the edge of blowing up, continuously pushing their physical and mental discomfort envelope with not a second to relax.

Perhaps Kittycat is refering to the greater likelyhood (sp) of falling off as your time on the treadmill increases. I know that when I run the longer I'm on there the more mistakes I makes though I have only fallen off once. :0

I can see the possiblity of "falling off" on a long roller ride, but I am yet to ever see anyone "fall off" a treadmill :-). Are we triathletes that uncoordinated ?

gotta agree with you on this. i don't understand how taking 4 hours to run a treadmill marathon would be more difficult than doing it in 2-something. more boring sure, but definitely not more difficult.

i could do a 4 hour treadmill marathon. i could not, regardless of how hard i tried, do a 2-something.

what if i took 6 hours to do it, that would be even harder?!

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____________________________________________________________
"I'm happy when life's good,
and when it's bad I cry.
I've got values but I don't know how or why."
- The Who

I actually think you missed her point, and that you are arguing something else.

Of course it is harder to run faster for anyone. For some less gifted athletes a 4hours marathon is way way harder than Paul Tergat running a pedestrian 2h25. Telling us that it's harder for you to run 2h48 than 4 hours is a clear evidence.

Anyhow, that's beside the point. Her point was linked to the boring aspect of running on the treadmill. No matter the pace, it is much tougher to run on the treadmill than outoor. I totally agree with her in that while I could envision a 2 hours treadmill run, I could not do a 4 hour run. In fact, when I run on the treadmill (rarely) I tend to do tempo runs or intervals since they make time goes by faster (at least for me).

As to your somewhat 'elitist' viewpoint of running at 'the edge', while for you it might be 2:48, for others it may well be 3:45 or 4:30.

Francois in Montreal

Are you saying that since she is running in 4 hours that there is no possible way she is running at her "threshold"?

I was under the impression that the pain is the same, just one person is going faster.

Would I rather spend 2.5 hours in agony or 4? I pick 2.5.

OH Crap, here we go again with that dirty word "elitest". Trust me, anything slower than 2:30 is not elite. Saying so is a disservice to the true elite. The rest are weekend warriors of varyng degee of speed :-).

I guess I am comparing the mental pain of concentrating for 2:23 on a treadmill at the edge of blowup, vs the mental torture of staying on the treadmill for 4 hours. Let me just say, (and I know I will get flamed), that someone running at a 4 hour marathon pace is NOT putting out as much mental effort as someone doing a 4 hour marathon. These guys are racing a marathon at the mental effort that most of us can barely sustain for a 1 mile repeat. I'm not talking about phycial effort, what I am talking about is mental concentration. The ability to stay "inwardly focuesed" and keep the brain on top of the body for the entire time, without "wandering" from the task at hand.

first of all, you're assuming that a person running a 4 hour marathon is not pushing *their* physical limit, etc. remember, speed and exertion are relative. So, a 4 hour "easier" marathon for you, would be like my 5 or 6 hour "easier" marathon for me. It's all realtive. Again, the point is not that he was working harder at 2.5 hours, just that (here is the point-AGAIN) he didn't have to run for a longer time to get it done. I'm not disagreeing that 2.5 hours is pretty damn hard thing to do...again, my point is that thank God it didn't take him 4 hours or more on the mind numbing machine you and I call the treadmill.

What I'm talking about is the pure time--and time itself--on the treadmill. Time on the treadmill is a whole other catagory of challenge in and of itself. I think that the longer one has to stay on the harder it is to do because of the mental challenge it provides.

I don't know why this is so hard. But, hell, who cares....I have no business even being on here, when I should be making marketing calls...lol.

So in essence, you are saying that someone running at a pace of 3 min/km (and at 15 on the Borg scale) is experiencing more mental pain than someone running at a pace of 5 min/km and at the same 15 on the Borg scale ?

And again in my case, I would much rather run one hour at near threshold on the threadmill than 2 hours at a leisurely slow pace. But I would much rather run the one hour threshold run outside. I think that's what Kittykat was trying to say. But, eh, we are all different.

Francois in Montreal

Yeah, but mental focus doesn't make you run fast. It makes you run steady. The speed comes from all the training you've done leading up to the race among other things.

Is the 2.5 marathoner exerting more energy. Yeah, mechanically speaking. But mentally the effort is the same since his body has been trained to run at that pace.

To argue this point would be to say that if he were to run a 4 hour marathon would result in him being as fatigued and exhausted as kittycat would be after such a race. I'm pretty sure he'd be alot fresher than her running at her pace.

there's a problem with the arguement, and I really don't want to offend anyone, but rarely is a 4 hour marathoner pushing their limits like a sub 2:30 guy. I'm sorry, but it's really true. It's just funny how casually dismiss them by just saying, "sure, they're faster, but..." there's a reason they are faster. most runners aren't natural superhuman athletes, that's why they became runners in the 1st place. They push themselves to a totally different level. An elite runner saying their PRE is 15 compared to a 4-5 hour person, sorry it's not the same. Let's forget about speed, it's about a physiological limit, that is not being reached by a 4 hour person. It's great to go out there and do the best you can, but it's unfair to say you pushed yourself exactly the same as someone who went 2:20. This is what the so called "elitist" are saying. If you put were running the same HR, w/ the same lactic acid buildup, the 4-5 hour person is not running on the same "threshold" as the elite, even if they went the exact same amount of time. Simply using the PRE scale isn't accurate, b/c it doesn't take into account how tuned in to your body you are. You have to look at it somewhat physiologically...the body isn't producing the same warnings to your body that try to stop you (lactic acid, extreme HR, etc...)

I agree with cbot and dev here. You can't compare the 2 situations because I don't believe the 4 hour marathoner's effort (physical and mental) is even close to the effort to put out a sub-2:30 marathon. Saying this doesn't make anyone elitist. It just means that we recognize that there's a difference to someone like me working my tail off for a PR and someone setting a world record.

D.

Quote:
I can see the possiblity of "falling off" on a long roller ride, but I am yet to ever see anyone "fall off" a treadmill :-). Are we triathletes that uncoordinated ?

Happens all the time. Ask anyone who has worked in a gym and many have their own treamill pile-up stories to tell you. To answer your question: no, it didn't happen to me!!

Paul

I guess the next thing would be to do an IM like that......"Endless Pool," Computrainer and a Treadmill.

*can you even measure how far you've gone in an Endless Pool?

Yes, you have a hard time going more that 12 inches in an endless pool.

Styrrell

[reply]Do they do these things with the treadmill flat (ie. no elevation)?

I've found that I can run at least 60 seconds per mile faster on a flat treadmill than I can outside, at the same HR. It I add like 2-4 degrees of elevation it feels much more realistic. But every so often it is fun to go to the gym and do a 30 minute workout at 11mph. :) On a flat treadmill it feels like the motor is doing all the work, you just have to kick up you heels...

Chris[/reply]

That could simply be a calibration issue. I suspect most treadmills are only close to the correct speed. Treadmills should be harder at the same speed simply because of cooling issues.

Frank

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

OK, how about (almost) SIX consecutive 4-hour marathons on a treadmill in 24 hours straight? 153.76 miles in 24 hours!

http://www.recordholders.org/...admill-bergland.html

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Jonathan Cane
City Coach Multisport
http://www.citycoach.org

Treadmills should be harder at the same speed simply because of cooling issues.


Treadmills are easier because there is no wind drag. Cooling effects can be dealt with using a fan or running in a room with a low temperature.

Francois in Montreal