This past week, I had to travel to FL to work out of my head office. Since it’s so humid in FL when compared to TX and because of the constant rain and thunderstorms, I decided to do my running on the treadmill in the hotel’s mini-gym.

Running on the treadmill was some of the hardest/toughest running I’ve had to do in a while. Based on my heart rate, I wasn’t working any harder than normal so I have to think it just “felt” hard because of the boredom. The treadmill was facing a mirrored wall and all I could see for the entire time was myself running. This was fine for about 2 mins as it allowed me to see my running form and make sure I didn’t have any unnecessary movement, but after that, it was pure torture.

I think there are a couple reasons why it’s tougher:

1. While running on the road, there is a lot to see and keep you busy
2. While running, you can easily adjust your speed to be a little faster or slower, but on a treadmill, you are stuck at a set speed unless you want to be constantly pushing button
3. It’s too easy to stop on a treadmill. All it takes is to hop off the treadmill. On the road, when you’re a couple miles from home, you have no choice but to continue running (or walking). You can’t just hop off the road and walk into your house.

The only good thing about the treadmill is that it lets you run when you may not otherwise go running, so that’s a huge benefit.

Posted by derek in Training