I tend to do most of my training indoors these days…since my job keeps me busy I try to stay close to my little daughters when not on-call. I took this year off and now I am starting to train in earnest for IMC next August. Right now I am trying focus on losing weight(30#), get in running shape. I swim at home.
I am looking for ways to design treadmill workouts to optimize performance. Most days I run 50mins, 2% grade, 6.3-6.6mph( roughly 9min/mile). I am unsure how accurate my Landice is as far as speed, but seems to be a nice clip to keep up for an hr…it gives me a good workout.
I have the ability to set user profiles…so I could warmup for 10mins…brake-up the midsection…then set a cool-down.
So, anyone have ideas for ways to use the treadmill as a good training tool?
Won’t be long until I’m relegated to treadmill workouts, at least for ‘speed sessions’. One way I like to break up the middle section is with 1/4 or 1/2 mile repeats - pick how many you want to do, and decide how hard you want to go for your ‘on’ and ‘off’ intervals. Then, get going with 1/4 on/1/4 off or 1/2 on/1/4 off. If I’m feeling extra motivated, I’ll do mile repeats with 1/4 off in the middle section. If I’m exceptionally motivated, I like to finish up the hard section with the dreaded ‘suicide mile’ - for this, you start at a good tempo pace and increase the pace every 1/4 mile until it’s balls-out for the last 1/4. As an alternative - if you can find a partner of similar ability to workout with, you both warmup as needed on separate treadmills, and then you’ll be sharing one for the hard part of the workout. Crank up the pace to a solid tempo for both of you - you take turns doing hard intervals, jumping off the t-mill when you finish your interval. Your partner then jumps on and hammers out his/her interval. You increase the pace and/or incline as you progress - just be careful, or it’ll turn into a ‘screw your partner’ contest.
I’m no run expert, but I’ve been lovin’ the treadmill for speed and hill workouts. I’m trying to sneak in a couple of extra run sessions per week, and lunch-hour is the only time I have.
So I alternate Tuesday & Thurdays with treadmill sessions: one day is hills, the next is a more “speed” oriented session.
For the hills, I use a hill program preset on the gym treadmill: 7.5 - 8.0 mph, at level 10 (out of 20). It mixes up the grade, topping out at 10%. Warm-up & cool-down are 5 minutes with a total of 35 minutes (4 miles)
For speed workout, I start at 6.5 for .25 mile, go to 7.5 for another .25, then to 8.5 for the next mile, then 9.0 for the next, and 9.5 for the last mile (if I’m feeling particularly good I’ll up it to 10.0 for the last .5 mile, just to scare the bejesus out of whomever’s working out next to me!). I’ll cool down for .5, for a total of 4 in less than 35 minutes. All done at a 1% grade.
These are short sessions, leaving me plenty of time to shower and get back to work. I also run two other days, outside. I’ll know if this plan is any good once spring hits and I try to break 40 minutes in an early 10K.
Do you like the Landice? My wife want’s us to pick one up. Is it worth the extra dough?
do a lot of treadmill stuff also - just try and varry the speed on each run - make something up as i go along - i know that is not much help - but you are smart - you pull people out of people - right?? figuring out a treadmill session ought to be easy compared to that ;]
ok - i know this is completely inappropriate but… and I’m sure a bunch of other guys have the same questions but are afraid to ask…
you’re an ObGyn - got any hot chick clients?? make the job more enjoyable, OR at the point you see them are the smoking babes and fat slobs all the same???
Negative splits! Start at a speed you’re comfortable at and each mile (or half mile, whatever) speed up a little until you feel like you’re going all out. It feels really good and is great speedwork.
You can do hill repeats as well using the incline - a favorite of mine is to go up 1% every two minutes until you hit 5%, then go back down.
