Treadmill runs

Treadmill run: Yes, an actual run

Yes, today I got on the treadmill (as it continues snowing outside) and actually did a full 5K run for the first time in about a hundred years. I think the calibration on the watch vs. the treadmill may be off because the laps were going faster on the watch, but I still ran for about 28 minutes, which is about right for a 5K. I may do a short (1-2 km) run later on to recalibrate things.

My shins always seem to get worked over more on a treadmill. I’m not sure if it’s the greater resistance or what, but they did eventually settle down. Since I’m not used to actually running on the treadmill, I contemplated stopping at the 3K mark, but pressed on. Then I thought about stopping at the 4K mark…and pressed on. At that point, only falling off the treadmill would have kept me from doing the full 5K, but when I hit 5K I was delighted and immediately stopped1See below for why this was not a great idea.

Notes:

  • I burned more calories last time when I mostly walked. Sad trombone.
  • BPM was only a little higher–this is good!
  • Pace was fast at 5:35/km, which does suggest calibration between watch and treadmill is off.
  • I got an abnormally high heart rate warning while writing this, probably because I didn’t cool off properly post-run. My bad and I will properly recover next time.

My overall training status is still listed as Strained, because I’ve been a fat lazy bum, I guess (which has been true-ish this month). But things will improve for the rest of the month.

Speed: 8.7 (6.7-8.7)
Incline: 1 (1)

Pace: 5:35/km (8:14/km)
Time: 28:07 (33.09)
Distance: 5.03 km (4.03 km)
Calories burned: 348 (387)
BPM: 150 (142)

Treadmill run 6: Keeping the cookies down

FYI, I have done more than six runs on a treadmill, but this was the sixth on my own treadmill. Even though I’ve used the treadmill a lot (especially in 2022) it’s been mostly for fast walks, not actual runs. But today I ran!

Most of the time.

Looking over the precious few previous runs, I opted for a speed of 9, which works out to 6:40/km–a slow running pace for outdoors, but not bad for a treadmill. I expected my legs to catch fire because running and walking use quite different muscles, but to my surprise and delight that did not happen.

But my stamina for jogging is not quite there yet and a few times, maybe for about three minutes total, I slowed the pace down to 7 or 6.5 (my usual; treadmill walking pace until I recovered enough to ramp back up. I went 30 minutes instead of trying for 5 km, but the ultimate goal will be to push on for at least 5 km. until I recovered enough to ramp back up. I went 30 minutes instead of trying for 5 km, but the ultimate goal will be to push on for at least 5 km.

A couple of observations:

  • I listened to music, figuring it might be difficult to watch videos, with the head bobbing and all. This meant my eyes naturally fell to the treadmill display. This was bad because staring at the time made it feel like it was passing very slowly. I’m going back to videos or covering the display next time with a towel.
  • As noted, the legs held up fine. I guess all the slow burn walking workouts have helped!
  • I sweated a lot more.
  • At about the 28-minute mark, I suddenly felt I might throw up. I slowed to a walking pace for a minute, then switched back to running for the last 60 seconds.I think this happened due to an excessive amount of phlegm clogging my throat and getting jiggled around (yeah, gross). I am going to talk to my doctor about this, as this much phlegm seems strange and weird.

Other than the relative lack of stamina and the near-hurling right at the end, I thought it went fairly well. It is showery today, otherwise I might have tried outside. Maybe next time!

Stats:

Pace: 6:52/km
Speed: 9 (6:40/km) and 6.5 (9:13/km)
Time: 30:11
Distance: 4.39
Calories burned: 347
BPM: 154

Treadmill run: The unintentional interval run

At noon today I opted to run instead of lunch. To expedite matters, I ran on the treadmill instead of outside. It has been a long while since I ran inside or outside.

I started at a speed of 9.5, which translates to a pace of 6:12/km or so. Slower than a typical outdoor run, but fairly decent for the treadmill. I quickly realized that this was Too Fast and set it back to 9. I then realized that running at this or any other pace for more than a few minutes was lighting my calves and ankles on fire. I checked my BPM on the watch, and it was rocketing toward 170. I did not like this, so about 3-4 times when my heart rate started to climb, I dropped down to my walking pace of 6.5 and walked for a minute or so until my BPM settled.

Technically, then, this was not a 30-minute run but more like a 24- or 25-minute run. Still, I finished instead of just quitting and eating a giant pie. I consider this a good start to getting back into the run of things.

The stats:

Pace: 7:04/km
Speed: 9 (6:40/km) and 6.5 (9:13/km)
Time: 30:03
Distance: 4.25
Calories burned: 346
BPM: 158

Treadmill run: This thing goes up to 30 (minutes)

Today I slept in a wee bit, then had breakfast and thought about going for a run. Instead I noodled around for a bit, then walked to the mall, which, given my walking pace, burned 341 calories.

When I got home I thought about going for a run, but time was running out to get to the lake before darkness set in.

So I had a bubble bath, because I bought bubble bath at the mall.

After the bubble bath, I did not think about going for a run, because I was all fuzzy and warm and relaxed. Instead I had dinner.

After dinner I did a 20 minute walk on the treadmill with a speed of 6 and incline of 10. I sweated profusely. After the sweat dried, I got back on and did an open run, planning to stop when the watch declared I had been running for 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes later I stopped. I started the run at a speed of 10 again, but after awhile I wanted to get my heart rate down a bit, so dropped the speed to 9.4, then 9.2. I bumped it back to 10 for the last minute or so.

Overall, it went fine. The first few minutes all the muscles that get worked out in running, rather than walking, yodeled in protest. Things settled down after that and I was left to ponder thoughts like, “Why is my phone randomly pulling up so many Coldplay songs?” By the last few minutes I was getting into that “will be glad it’s over” state of mind because I am still soft and flabby. Then it was over.

A few takeaways now that I’ve done multiple runs on the treadmill:

  • I definitely need a fan, because I sweat buckets on this thing. The fan on the treadmill is equivalent to having a baby wave its hand in front of your face.
  • Maybe a towel to go with the fan.
  • Running without a shirt is kind of nice. I may do this outdoors once I lose most of the tire.
  • The downside of going without a shirt is a well-designed shirt pulls the sweat away from your body. With no shirt, the sweat is all, “All right, I’m staying right here.”
  • I’m tempted to cover up the display while running. I don’t really like seeing my stats in front of me for the entire run. Maybe I’ll start playing racing videos on the iPad or something.

And the stats:

Distance: 4.47 km
Time: 30:06 
Average pace: 6:44/km
Speed: 9.2-10 km/h
BPM: 153
Calories: 333
Total treadmill distance: 54.11 km
Device used: Apple Watch Series 5

The “testing the app” treadmill mini-run

Tonight I got back on the treadmill to try the Sole app, which can sync to the treadmill through the magic of Bluetooth, which is neither blue nor has teeth.

The app has a measly 1.5 star rating in the App Store, but I didn’t check on why. It could be a single disgruntled ex-employee or maybe the app actively kills other apps while they innocently idle in the background. In any case, I use the Apple Watch to track my runs for real, so this app is just be a bonus or alternative to the monochrome LCD on the treadmill itself.

And that’s what it was. There are three views, one that closely mimics the treadmill’s display, but in color, and two others that show the same stats, but in different layouts. It’s nicer than the built-in display simply because it’s in color and higher resolution. It also makes it easy to start a timed run, something I haven’t quite uncovered on the treadmill’s actual controls.

Reaching out to interact with the iPad while running is a good test of balance, of which I have very little. Fortunately, you can still control the run from the treadmill’s panel and buttons, too.

For this mini-run I set a 10 minute goal and in that time I ran 1.51 km and my BPM was a low 148. This was with a speed of 10 km/h, so close to my normal running pace (I’m going to start recording the speed in my treadmill stats, but it will generally be set to 10 km/h). I burned 103 calories or two Timbits. Mmm, Timbits.

I next did a test walk to see how using a mix of incline and speed would turn out. This time I didn’t set a timer, I decided to walk until I had burned another 100 calories. Interestingly, my BPM was 145, nearly the same as for the run. It took me 9:56 minutes to burn 106 calories using the following settings:

Speed: 6 km/h
Incline: 10%

This put my walking pace at 10:17/km, which is pretty decent for a 10% incline. I sweated copiously. I may tinker with the settings a bit more, but this may be as close to the sweet spot as I’ll get, as the incline can only be set to a maximum of 12% and at 6 km/h I was able to keep pace, but nudging the speed up from there made it a fair bit more difficult to keep from moving toward the end of the treadmill and a spot on America’s Funniest Home Videos or whatever the YouTube equivalent is now.

Here are the stats for the run part:

Distance: 1.51 km
Time: 10:04 
Average pace: 6:38/km
Speed: 10 km/h
BPM: 148
Calories: 103
Total treadmill distance: 49.64 km
Device used: Apple Watch Series 5

I think I may try doing at least a mini-run of 10-15 minutes every day, along with the longer 5K runs and, of course, the outdoor runs on the weekend, except when there are blizzards and such.

The second “using my own treadmill” run

The second time was more like a “real” treadmill run. I put on the AirPods and listened to music, which made me realize that I was apparently concentrating so hard during the first run that I didn’t notice the sound of the treadmill’s motor at all. It’s not loud, per se, but it’s kind of hard to miss. I could still hear it underneath the music with the AirPods in, but not to the point it was annoying.

I tried the built-in fan. It moves a tiny bit of air and adds to the noise. I stopped trying it.

This time I ramped up to the usual jogging speed of 6 (mph), which translates to about 9.7 km/h. This is the best combo of comfort and speed to approximate running outdoors, though it’s slower. Adding a 1% incline brings it closer and I might try that in the future.

I ran 15 minutes on my first bit of treadmillin’ and went for 20 minutes tonight. I’ll try the full 30 minutes or 5K the next time out. Tonight I definitely felt better on the treadmill and best of all, my left foot feels fine, even wearing the cross trainers without the orthotic. Yay. I also ended the run at 20 minutes on the Workout app, but let it go a few minutes longer on the treadmill itself, ramping the speed down to give me a recovery period, something I neglected the first time. It’s a much nicer way to finish.

Plans for the future may include mounting a better fan, setting up the iPad app that works with the treadmill to see how it compares to the built-in display (the treadmill has a place to hold a tablet) and other stuff I haven’t thought of yet. Jeff brought his magic fingers to play after by helping to execute the right key combo to enter maintenance mode and change the units from miles back to km. That should make it easier on my brain to track progress on future runs.

The stats:

Distance: 3.09 km
Time: 20:04 
Average pace: 6:30/km
BPM: 160
Calories: 241
Total treadmill distance: 48.13 km
Device used: Apple Watch Series 5

The “I ran on my own treadmill” run

After thinking about for a good long while and doing research for awhile longer, I finally went out and bought a treadmill so I can run when it is dark/wet/scary outside. It’s a Sole F80, which is what might be considered a basic or entry-level commercial grade treadmill. I was willing to spend on something commercial grade because I’ll be using the treadmill regularly and I wanted something that could hold up to daily use.

Unlike a lot of treadmill purchasers, I’m not in the planning stages of running, since I’ve already logged 4,800+ km over the last ten years, so I don’t expect this to become a glorified coat rack in a couple of months.

Setup was east, because I paid the fitness store to do it. The manual shows an exploded view of the treadmill, so named because looking at it will make your head explode. It took three experienced builders an hour to put the treadmill together. It would have taken me a week and I’d have had parts left over, wondering if they were important or not.

I programmed in settings for User 1 (me) and User 2 (Jeff) and did a trial run (ho ho) of 15 minutes. I didn’t listen to music, just my own clomping, as I wanted to listen for any odd sounds the first time. I heard no odd sounds, just the relatively quiet whir of the motor and, as mentioned, my clomping. Shortly into the run my left shoelace came untied, which was weird, but I figure I must have tied it a bit lopsided and got an end caught under my shoe. Because I had been un-manlike and read the manual, I knew how to pause the run, tied my shoelace back up and completed the run.

Because I haven’t been running much lately and also I’m fattish now, even 15 minutes felt like more than 15 minutes. But I’m going to run again in a couple days and keep it up as much as I can comfortably manage.

I do like the ease of just changing and hopping on. It really can’t get more convenient, so my excuses for not running will need to be extra-lame now:

  • “I might break the treadmill!”
  • “What if I pull a muscle again? I’m good at pulling muscles.”
  • “What if I fly off and go through a wall?”
  • “What if I run so much my legs become like tree trunks and suddenly I can’t get through the door?”
  • And so forth

The stats for my first at-home mini-run:

Distance: 2.32 km
Time: 15:06 
Average pace: 6:30/km
BPM: 157
Calories: 175
Total treadmill distance: 45.04 km
Device used: Apple Watch Series 5

The first April treadmill run, 2019 edition

Back to the treadmill today, though the weather turned out to be unexpectedly decent, so a run outside would have worked, too.

My goals were the same as last time–maintain pace, hope for no issues, finish with a nice BPM. And I hit all three, woo.

I goofed a bit on the tracking, letting the timer run (ho ho) for over a minute into my cooldown (walking) phase, so my average pace was officially 6:19/km. Using my primitive caveman math skills to eliminate this part of the run, my overall pace was actually closer to 6:12/km, so pretty much identical to the last treadmill run. My BPM was down slightly, as well, to 153.

No issues encountered throughout, it was just a nice, steady run.

The stats, slightly skewed by the aforementioned extra time:

Distance: 4.18 km (4.01)
Time: 26:25 (24:50) 
Average pace: 6:12/km (6:11/km)
BPM: 153 (155)
Calories: 314 (283)
Total treadmill distance: 42.72 km

The five days later treadmill run

In which I feel it a little more than last time, but stay on-track for the full 25 minutes.

This time the timer was set to the standard 30 minutes, so I got the cooldown at the expected 25 minute mark. Unlike Thursday’s run, I did not particularly get a second wind tonight, and I also supped from my water bottle several times during the run. Still, I ran the full 25 minutes, then walked during the five-minute cooldown. I stop tracking the run when the cooldown begins, so the pace doesn’t get thrown off by all the lazy walking.

My BPM was slightly higher at 155, but that was because I was working harder–my average pace dropped from 6:16/km to 6:11/km. You may wonder how you improve your pace on a treadmill that moves at the same speed for the entire time. So do I, a little. Really, though, it’s easy to recognize when I’m over or under-performing. Under performing = moving farther back on the treadmill. Over-performing = running into the grips at the front. I did a bit of both tonight.

Overall, though, an effort I am happy with, and no issues to note.

Stats (note the 2+ minutes difference in time vs. the last run):

Distance: 4.01 km (4.39)
Time: 24:50 (27:34) 
Average pace: 6:11/km (6:16/km)
BPM: 155 (153)
Calories: 283 (297)
Total treadmill distance: 38.54 km

The treadmill run run

Off to the treadmill again!

Tonight I wanted to go farther between intervals as my main goal. I focused at the start on two things: my breathing and how I generally felt. And I felt pretty decent.

Once I got to about the 14 minute mark I knew I could push to 20 without slowing to a walk, and probably go right up to the cooldown at the 25-minute mark.

Which I did, though the cooldown mysteriously did not begin at the 25-minute mark. I discovered after that the previous user had set the total time to 32 minutes (signs near the machines ask you to limit workouts to 30 minutes as a courtesy if others are waiting). That meant the cooldown didn’t stop until the 27-minute mark.

It was at that point that I switched to a fast walk and I walked for the last five minutes. I ended the run to keep my average pace up, then switched to an indoor walk for the walky part. Then I forgot to turn it off, allowing me to test the Workout app’s ability to sense when a workout has ended and ask if you wanted to stop. It did do this, albeit about two minutes after I stopped.

In terms of results, I felt a mini version of the runner’s high midway through, which was spiffy, brought my average pace down, and despite running the entire time, also brought my heart rate down. When you compare the distance and calorie counts below, keep in mind that this run was about two minutes shorter than the previous.

If you add the distance of my walk after, I hit exactly 5 km (and burned another 59 calories, for a total of 356. Woo.

And here are the stats (note I am now tracking total distance for treadmill runs and will go back and start numbering the treadmill runs, which I am too lazy to do tonight):

Distance: 4.39 km (4.38)
Time: 27:34 (29:26) 
Average pace: 6:16/km (6:43/km)
BPM: 153 (157)
Calories: 297 (327)
Total treadmill distance: 34.53 km

The exercise-bike-turned-into-a-treadmill run

Tonight I tried the exercise bike, to see if it would torture my knees as the elliptical had two night earlier.

The answer is: Yes! Not as badly, but still enough for me to bail out after 45 calories (five minutes) worth of pedaling.

I went back to the treadmill and managed to run longer between walking and walked less overall. It all went fine. The stats, with previous run in brackets:

Distance: 4.38 km (4.22)
Time: 29:26 (29:35) 
Average pace: 6:43/km (7:01)
BPM: 157 (156)
Calories: 327 (327)

Yes, even though I ran harder, had a significantly better average pace, I still burned the exact same number of calories. Or so my Apple Watch says. Perhaps it is a big fat liar. BPM remaining virtually identical despite the harder push was nice, though.

The started-as-elliptical-turned-into-treadmill run

Tonight at the pool I got on the elliptical, intending to do a full workout.

Six minutes and twenty seconds later I stopped because my knees were hurting too much I won’t say I suffered a thousand agonies, but it was probably at least 600. I tried adjusting the machine multiple ways, but it made no difference. I have a pretty high tolerance for discomfort, but could not abide this.

I did manage to burn 64 calories before packing it in.

I switched over to the treadmill, which went much better. The workout there was almost a mirror image of Friday night. I say almost because I walked a little longer during the cooldown period at the end, which slowed my overall pace. I also felt a bit tired to start (probably from the elliptical) and this made me want to drop to walking more often, but I checked my BPM, it was good, and I pressed on.

The stats, with Friday’s in brackets:

Distance: 4.22 km (4.24)
Time: 29:35 (29:28) 
Average pace: 7:01/km (6:57)
BPM: 156 (157)
Calories: 327 (330)