In defence of the treadmill

Treadmills get a bad rap. Serious (and snooty) runners look down on it.. You can ‘start’ running on treadmills but as soon as you get comfortable with 5k+ distances, it’s time to hit the trail/road. Or so is the guidance issued to newbie runners by seasoned runners. Yours truly has also routinely dished out that advice.

But treadmills have several redeeming qualities. Even more so if you live in an Indian city.

#1 Treadmills are safe

Do you like to plugin your headphones and lose yourself in the rhythmic trance beats of a Depeche Mode track? You can totally do so.. without compromising your personal safety. Try the same on your early morning long run and you might be startled by the territorial and passionate barking of stray dogs (if you are lucky) or get nearly run over by a sleep-deprived Meru cabbie (if you are unlucky).

#2 Treadmills are relaxing (think “meditation”) and engender creativity

Long runs are relaxing in general. Once you are past the 7k (or 10k) zone, when your body is warmed up and breathing settles down to an optimal rate. Whether you are running alone or with a group of friends who are as comfortable talking as they are being silent, this is the time when random thoughts start wafting out. I like to call this the “churning the ocean” facet of running. On a treadmill, you hit this zone much sooner — maybe at the 2k mark itself. If you’ve set the pace correctly, time flies. Many of my creative ideas (even the tactical ones) have had their birth on the treadmill. I would routinely spend the last 5 minutes of my treadmill run recollecting the 3 (or was it 4) ideas that recently germinated and mentally repeat them hoping they stay with me after I headed up to the apartment so I’d immediately record the ‘gems’. During my days at the Cupertino YMCA, I would borrow scraps of paper from the Front Desk and immediately jot down my thoughts.

#3 Great start to your interval training

Every runner wants to get faster. Everyone also hates interval training (aka “speed training”) — a crucial weapon in a runner’s arsenal. Most runners hate speed training because it’s REALLY hard.. yes, harder than tempo runs. On a treadmill, you can easily run a pace of 20 sec/km faster than what you would normally run on the trail or road. Running intervals on a treadmill has a few advantages. First, you just have to stay on the damn treadmill at your set pace (if you slow down, you’ll fall off). Second, you get accustomed to keeping a fixed pace — it’s much harder to do this on a trail/road and constantly having to peer at your Garmin. Of course, once you get accustomed to the intervals training torture on the treadmill, you are ready for the real deal.. where you bitter truth hits you.. that a 4:30/km pace on the treadmill is equivalent to a 4:50/km pace on the course.

#4 When rain plays spoiler

Whether you are a disciplined runner following Hal Higdon’s advanced training plan or a weekend warrior, we all hate it when rain plays spoiler on our long runs. You can be miserable all weekend or.. you can clamber onto a treadmill where you also get the benefits of #2. Most treadmills have a 99 min maximum time setting so there’s the little problem of taking a forced (or planned) break — that’s when I grab my water bottle. During one such weekend (14 months ago), I ran 31k on the treadmill.

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Update (Apr 11, 2013): And while we are on the topic of treadmill running, I stumbled upon this excellent discussion on the LetsRun forum. I’ve picked some favorites but most of the comments are worth a read.

Here’s one from “Very Bad”:

Funny I have the opposite reaction to training on a treadmill. You say that the TM allows you to run at a pace that won’t overwhelm you. I typically commit to a TM pace before I run and will stick to it regardless how I feel because of my pride. If I say my moderate pace is 5:36/mile, and I will run that for 45 minutes, then I will stick to that pace unless I have some German Fernandez-like injury. If I do slow down it will be very slight, like down to 5:40 miles, and I’ll hate myself for pussying out, question my training that made 5:36 miles so painful, and lose confidence in my fitness.

If I were alone outside doing this workout, I’d slow down fairly imperceptibly rather than kill myself, and then get a little disappointed when I realize I wasn’t going as fast as I thought. If I were training with a group I’d probably just get dropped by that group, and I’d probably believe they were running faster than 5:36 pace.

In fact I use the treadmill precisely because it’s easier to kill myself.

And this comment by jtupper (who apparently coached a 2:09 marathoner)

I have used treadmills for a few years (started in 1960) and also coached Kenny for a number of years. He did a bunch of 2 hour (20-mile) runs on his treadmill in Santa Fe, NM also, leading up to his 2:09+ in NY City. I remember thinking that a 2:09 run must feel quite brief & maybe even pleasant compared with the concentration required to stay on that thing for 2 hours a bunch of times. I have also tested many runners on many treadmills and have yet to see any real change is stride rate or running mechanics as some think happens. No question the cost of a specific speed (say 6:00 pace for example) is less on a calibrated treadmill, compared with overground running, but one could argue that just doing the work is what really matters. Sometimes you may want to run at a specific pace, other times you just want a solid challenge.