"10 Reasons To Love The Treadmill"
I saw this title of an article on the internet a couple of weeks ago (can’t remember if it was RunnersWord or The Running Blog). I didn’t read the article but decided to see if I could come up with my own reasons to love treadmills, especially as I mainly use treadmills for training rather than running outside. Here goes:
Run anytime: When you have a treadmill at home or a gym membership you can run whenever you want to!Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl there is an ideal time for you! Personally, I don’t feel safe running in the dark, you never know who is around, and I know my parents wouldn’t want me running around the dark streets near my house alone! With a treadmill you can run late at night if that is what you prefer without the added danger.
Climate control: no debating whether to run in the rain, whether to slip over on the ice or brave the gorgeous sunshine to sweat to death. With a treadmill you can just go and run, if it is warm turn on the air con, if it’s cooler, don’t. I give you the power to control the weather for your run ;)
Distractions: Other things apart from your ability and current mood can play havoc with your time! Aiming for a personal best? I don’t think so, not with slow people blocking the pavements, cars parked up on the curb and people riding bikes on the pavement. I understand other people have just as much of a right to be walking on the pavements as we do running on them but on the treadmill it’s just you, yourself and the open machine!
No carrying a water bottle, phone, iPod, keys etc: you can throw everything in a locker and your phone/iPod and water in the water bottle holder on the treadmill! I find it awkward when I go out for a run if I want to take my phone (safety) my Ipod, a bottle of water and my keys to get back in my house. And I always worry about things falling out of my pockets and losing them, especially my keys.
No having to ditch layers during your run: so it’s freezing outside, and in order to brave the cold you need running tights, top, jumper, coat, gloves and a hat! But 10 minutes in, you’re sweating, what do you do with your layers? You can’t not wear them at all can you? Or put them in a locker? With a treadmill you can, you can run in your PJ’s if you wish, only at home though, not at the gym!
Speed: if you have a pace target it can be difficult to stick to this, or even exceed it if you don’t know the pace you are running, a treadmill can set your pace and you can always see it in front of you, adjusting it up or down accordingly.
Incline: Easier to do hill training whenever you want: finding an outdoor hill is not a challenge for me, I live surrounded by hills! But for some it can be difficult! Want to do a 2k run up a steep hill for training? Go for it, it’s easy on a treadmill, just incline it!
Distance: Using a treadmill you can set an exact distance you want to run (if you want to be precise) rather than running around the block 3 and a half times until you get to the 5k you’d planned.
Unwanted substances: In the gym and on the treadmill (hopefully) there is no dog poo, which I have seen a lot of on the pavements running outdoors; is it so hard to pick it up? Surely if you have a dog and take it out for a walk, you have the responsibility of clearing up after it? Sorry rant over. Also unexpected pot holes and uneven pavements aren’t good for your ankles!
So there is my 10 reasons to love the treadmill, I could probably come up with more but they would start to get silly!
I haven't blogged in a few days because I've not really had much to say, I have not been running and although I'm new to it, I really don't like it! Friday I went to the Ab Box class but didn't go in the gym afterwards. I wasn't going to run I was going to use the cross trainer but after doing squats, squat jumps and star jumps I thought it was best to leave my knees. Because I can only feel my knees hurting whilst I am running I went for a walk on Saturday. A nice brisk (but cold) walk, and it turns out at 5.85k it could be decent running route if made up slightly to 6k. There are a few hills, both up and down so would be good to up my outdoor distance when running again.
Today I had planned to go to the gym and to try and run and if not go on the cross trainer. Then I looked out the window and it was freezing! I thought it was pointless driving to the gym to just use the cross trainer when I have a cross trainer at home. I planned to do an hour on the cross trainer today because I know the distance on my cross trainer goes up fast and it doesn't seem to burn many calories.
I completed 50 minutes on the cross trainer, covering 19km and burning 430 calories. To be honest, I don't know why I didn't either round it up to an hour or 20km. The programme I was watching on iPlayer went off so I stopped, silly really.
I am going away tomorrow for a couple of days so I won't be in the gym but hopefully I will be doing some walking. BUT I was also probably be eating awfully for 2 days so a lengthy gym session is needed on Thursday. This week is not going to be a good week for either food or exercise but we all have our setbacks. I will try my best and not deliberately pig out and will get back to it on Monday. Hopefully by Monday I will be able to run again and I can carry on training. I will only increase my distance slowly this time as I think I did too much too soon before.
Anyway I am off to bed with a hot chocolate as I'm finally back to Uni tomorrow and then off for a lovely trip away. Sorry for the long post and I'll update you all when I'm back on Thursday.
Love and happy running!
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