Running up a treadmill

It was back on the treadmill again yesterday. Winter popped back in for a quick visit, so running outside was not an option (for me anyway).

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I felt like I had missed out on a bunch of running during the week, so I wanted to hit it hard and get a good workout in. I need to be doing some hill training for the Tip track Marathon on a couple of weeks. So it was time to pay with the incline controls on the treadmill.

I started out quite easy running on the flat at 10km/h. That’s an easy pace for me now (a big improvement on last year when it was my goal pace). I did that for 1km as a warmup and then set the incline to 15 degrees – the maximum it would go.

I know fro previous experience that I can’t run a 15 degree slope at 10km/h for very long, so I dialled the speed back a bit to 7km/h. that was about as fast as I could go and maintain running for a full kilometre.

At the end of the second kilometre I cranked the speed back up to 10km/h and dropped the incline back to zero. It felt really weird! The speed increased faster than the incline went down, so I ended up running like hell just so I wouldn’t get spat off the back of the treadmill. When it was finally all the way back to being flat, it felt like I was running downhill, and I nearly barged into the front of the machine.

Lesson learned. Adjust one variable at a time.

The third kilometre was pretty good really, nice and easy running. But then it was time to run uphill again. This time it felt harder to keep going and I was sweating buckets. But I got to the end and gratefully lowered the ramp and got back running on the flat one more time.

I did this alternating up and down for one hour, covering just over 9 kilometres. At the end of the hour the treadmill automatically switches off (which is annoying as hell). So I had to stop, reset it and start again. By this time I was panting and sweating and my heart was pounding, so I elected to walk for 500 metres to recover a bit.

My ankles were sore for the uphill battle, and not wanting to get injured, I changed tack for the second hour of running.

I left the ramp flat but pushed the speed up to 12km/h and got into a steady rhythm for about 8kms.
It was interesting that I could do that. I should be laying on the floor a sweaty, panting mess waiting for the ambulance to come and take me away. But I was running strong and easy, even though my legs and lungs had taken quite a beating during the first hour.

So what do I do?

You guessed it, I ramped the speed up to 15km/h. by this time I had run about 18 or 19 kms and I was feeling pretty tired. But I held the 15km/h pace for about 500 metres before falling back to 10km/h for a bit of a warm down.

I ran out the rest of the second hour covering a bit more than 10kms. So I’m calling the whole run 20kms (give or take a few steps)

I’m quite happy with the way that all went really. I pushed hard and really worked my body out, and it responded really well. By the end, I was tired but my legs still had plenty left in them and my lungs seemed to recover really quickly as well. This is something I really need to train my body to do so I can get recovery happening during an ultra, and then get back into the race.

Spring is back on the menu today, so I’ll be able to get outside and run in the fresh air. The forecast is for an El Nino summer, with the MET service predicting temperatures as high as 30 degrees in November. If that’s the case then it looks like I’ll be in or a big summer of running indeed.

Bring it on, I say.

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Check out @len.george and find out what other madness he got up to!

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