Friends with the treadmill

Practice makes perfect

The winter in Bergen has so far been colder than usual with quite a bit of ice covering the ground and the roads. I must admit that I find it harder and harder to run in the cold. Uphill intervals and slow runs go fine, but when the temperature is below 0 degrees C, fast flat runs become quickly unpleasant. Not only my spike shoes get uncomfortable, my muscles become stiffer, and I never get them properly warmed up with the outside temperature all the time cooling them down.

Fortunately there are treadmills! You might remember that I have had a hard time getting used to running fast on a treadmill. There I get the opposite problem: it very quickly gets hot, and of course very boring. But practice makes perfect, and having a plan makes it all much more pleasant. Last year, I followed the treadmill plan that the Norwegian marathon queen Ingrid Kristiansen was posting regularly throughout the winter. Most of those sessions were quite doable, and with music in my ears, I slowly got used to doing longer and longer intervals on the treadmill.

I still find it quite unbearable to do a long fast run in steady pace on the treadmill, but I have found a couple of interval sessions that work really well for me. They are motivating, as one can measure progress all the time, and they are both well established among coaches toward the goal of faster running in races. They turned out to be doable and fun for me, so I wanted to share them with you.

For improving your 10k race time:
This interval session is recommended by several coaches. There are of course many ways to improve your 10k, but I have seen the following mentioned many times: when you can run 3 x 3000m in the pace that you want to achieve during a 10k race, then you are ready. This interval session prepares you to get to that point. The important thing is to do all the intervals in the pace that you want to achieve at the race. So, if you want to run a 10k in 45 minutes, then your pace should be 4:30 min/km, which corresponds to 13.3 km/h. I would actually be happy with a pace of 5:05 in my next 10k race, so I set the treadmill to 11.8 km/h. The first goal is to run 6 x 1500m in that pace, without getting your heart rate much over lactate threshold. When you are comfortable doing this, then you do 1 x 3000m + 4 x 15000m in the same pace. When this goes well, then you do 2 x 3000m + 2 x 15000m, and so on, until you reach 3 x 3000m in the desired pace with not too high heart rate. At this point you are ready for your next race. Just rest for a week, and then GO!

I am not even at the point of 6 x 1500m yet. I can do 4 of these, but my heart rate is a bit too high at the end of the fourth one, so I have so far stopped after 4.  But I feel that I can very soon do 5 of them. And then after a couple of weeks hopefully all 6.  On my way to the 6 x 1500m, I am also considering to do 4 x 1500m + 4 + 750m on my next attempt. The 1500m intervals, in my speed, take about 7.5 minutes. The first one feels the longest. Then it gets more manageable. I have to work with my brain all the time, and use the milestones 500, 750, and 1000 meters to motivate myself. It helps if the gym has TV screens or the treadmills face the weight training / cross fit area. Watching other people makes time go faster.

For improving your marathon time:
This is something I learned from our local running guru Per Gunnar, who had a remarkable article in the Kondis running magazine about how he helped a runner to achieve a sub 3h marathon time. The interval session is called Yasso's 800s. I have read a lot about them since then, and they are surprisingly easily doable. The session consists of 10 x 800m intervals. You run each interval in a time that reflects your goal time for a marathon. If you want to run a marathon in x hours and y minutes, then you have to run each 800m in x minutes and y seconds. So if you want to run a marathon in 3h 30min, then you run each 800m in 3min 30 sec. The break between the intervals is 400m, and you spend exactly the same time in the break as you do in the intervals, meaning that you run in half the speed.

I tried this immediately after reading the Kondis article, and of course I had to try sub 4h marathon time. Running 800m in 4 minutes corresponds to speed 12 km/h, so I set the treadmill to 12.1 km/h and 0.5 incline. Consequently, I did each of the 800m intervals and each of the 400m breaks in slightly less than 4 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised that I could do this without getting my heart rate much above threshold. But what does it actually mean? Can I run a marathon in sub 4h now, if I train for it? My single marathon attempt so far resulted in 4:17. Can it be that I am in better marathon shape now? At least, in 2017 I broke all my previous records in single every race and on every single course. I also participated in more races in 2017 than the total of all races before that, so perhaps I should try a marathon again this year?  In any case, the fact that Yasso's 800s are so easily doable, and one can all the time improve by setting the speed just a tiny bit higher, makes them a really fun interval session on the treadmill.

Of course, for street races, the intervals are better to do out on the road. But with 0.5 incline on the treadmill, I hope that the effect can be comparable. Running on the treadmill is in theory easier than out in the street, since the mill goes without you having to push your weight, and there is no air resistance because you are not moving forward. But at the same time, the fact that you are not moving forward is really hard on your brain. You have to constantly convince your brain to keep pushing your body forward although you are not getting anywhere! I am sure this plays a different role for each person, but the fact that you actually can focus on a point in the distance and run towards it and it gets closer and closer, definitely makes outdoor running much easier psychologically. The advantage of the treadmill, when it comes to these particular intervals, though, is that you can make sure to run at the correct speed all the time!

Hit the mill and get the skill!