Anyone else find the treadmill MUCH harder at a given pace?

Does it feel like you're running uphill? Treadmill incline could be messed up. I doubt that though considering you surely would have mentioned that if it was the case.

It sounds like a couple things:

1) You're mental fortitude is weak

2) Your treadmills calibration is off a bit

3) You are way over-exaggerating.

I often find that the first mile or so on the treadmill feels more difficult, but after a couple miles I almost find it easier to progress down and have a quick run on the treadmill.

They can be way off. I did tempo intervals on the treadmill the other day and changed machine each time to escape my hot air cloud. Some felt like LT pace, one felt noticeably slower, and one was going at interval pace - all at the same mph setting. They generally feel harder than outdoor running to me.

Repentance wrote:

It's poor air quality around here today, so I tried running on a treadmill for the first time in many years. WTF?

I can't believe how difficult it was to achieve my "outside" pace. If I'm going to do a normal 5 mile run outside, I do the Kenyan shuffle for a ~9 min opening mile, ease into a ~7min, and usually do ~6:40 pace the rest. Toss in a 6:00 at the end if feeling good. (GPS watch verified).

Even 10:00 pace on the treadmill felt difficult. Getting under 7:00 felt like sprinting.

Is this common? Does something about my mechanics make it difficult?

Anyone feel my pain?

Over decades, using the treadmill during many injury rehabs, I have always found every treadmill to be 1.5 to 2.0 mph faster than outdoors with the caveat that I live in a very hilly region.

A 6.6 mph treadmill feels like an outdoor 8 min/mile pace to me.

8 mph on the treadmill gives me the same feeling as running hard repeats(I'm old) on an outdoor track at 10 - 11 mph.

I’m definitely this way. Maybe because I didn’t run on the treadmill for years, but I definitely feel like it’s a lot harder to run the same pace on a treadmill than outside.

your stride is longer outdoor

on the tm, you are rushing it for fear of falling off

you will see that you have a higher cadence on the tm and that is what places the strain

your tm exercise is very useful but not in the same way that the equivalent outdoor routine

I usually add 1% incline on treadmill to simulate "flat road" and because air quality and the amount of "smog"(coal power, people burning trash, car tires "farmers burning crops/ wood etc", a.so. without regulation), cigarette smoke is VERY BAD almost every day in many parts of Asia (check the air quality in India and China...).

Yes, the faster workouts (especially longer temporuns (about 13-16k)) on treadmill feels much harder on treadmill compared to flat straight road (assuming no "obstacles"(cars, trucks, smokers), similar temperature, humidity and "acceptable" outdoor air quality).

Possible reasons:

maybe a bit hotter(1,2C) indoors (seems to sweat a lot more on treadmill)

slightly uneven pacing outdoors is fine but on treadmill you will fall of the belt(!)

maybe forced to take shorter steps on treadmill (more spm feels more unnatural and harder)

(treadmill IS going faster. Shuffling at the treadmill tempospeed (judged by feel, such as heartrate and spm) would result in a much faster pace outdoors)

jokooli wrote:

your stride is longer outdoor

on the tm, you are rushing it for fear of falling off

you will see that you have a higher cadence on the tm and that is what places the strain

your tm exercise is very useful but not in the same way that the equivalent outdoor routine

i have a very similar cadence on the treadmill as I do outdoors.

in fact, no discernible difference, as far as i can tell.

i am opposite. slow running is much harder for me on treadmill. Fast running is same or easier.

I've always found the same thing, what would be easy pace feels like a real effort on a treadmill, I never add the 1% incline as it already feels harder for me than running outside. I'm 6' 2" so maybe it is a stride length thing.

I agree with the OP and find that treadmill running is great training for that reason. FWIW for about fifteen years now I have most of my speed work on a Landice treadmill (at 0 degrees) and that has produced results as good or better than might be expected from hitting the same times at the track.

See how close it is to accurate at a given place. There are different methods, such as putting three pieces of tape on the belt and measuring the distances to determine belt length (try to be precise because any errors will be amplified), then film yourself running. Make sure the tape is flat and won’t catch on you or anything else. Run for a few minutes (at a minimum three) at the same place. Make sure the treadmill is at speed before starting your test. Play it back on the camera, counting how many times you see tape over what time period.

[(Tape appearances/3) x belt length (inches)]/(12x5280)=fraction of a mile ran (keep many decimals to prevent rounding error)

Second ran/(60x60)= fraction of an hour ran (keep many decimals to prevent rounding error)

Fraction of a mile/fraction of an hour ran

Compare to the speed you were running at. You might try this at different paces and repeat the test to ensure it's repeatable/accurate. My treadmill was off by over 0.5 mph at my easy pace, which I suspected.

I've noticed the same thing. If I run by feel of my normal easy pace, I end up setting the treadmill to a slower speed than what I would be running outside.

I'm really good at pacing myself by feel outside. But, if I set a treadmill to the speed I normally pace outside, it feels like I'm running harder than that same pace done outside.

Usually treadmill feels 30-60 seconds harder per mile for me at least. The surface feels extremely unnatural, my form feels off, and it's way too hot and stuffy.

Is the ground under the treadmill flat? If the building is on a hill, the floor could be slanted and cause the treadmill go feel like you're running with incline, even if the treadmill's incline is set to 0. It seems uncommon but it happened to me, so I guess it's possible.

In any case, if running on a treadmill feels harder than running outside, at least it might help your outside pace get faster or feel easier.

The treadmill is a crucible of absolute agony, and you're not even guaranteed the same level of agony every time, especially if you go to the gym.

You're dealing with your own heat cloud, plus varying heat from other people depending if it's crowded or not, plus varying temps/humidity depending on whether the gym wants to pay to run A/C or not on a given day. If you're heat sensitive, you're going to sweat a ton in there no matter so hydrate heavily before, during, and after.

My cadence is outrageously high on a treadmill compared to outside and it has nothing to do with "fear of falling." I suspect something to do with my stride mechanics and ground contact time. Maybe someone smarter can address this for us.

Individual treadmills in the same room can be all over the place. The treadmills at the end of a row tend to see the most use (no one wants to run next to another person) and will 9/10 times be incredibly worn out and shaky. But all treadmills can have their own varying levels of bounce and belt thickness. They may have incline and even sideways tilt depending on how the lazy gym staff last pushed it into place. And as many people mentioned, due to motor wear the speed you see on the screen is guaranteed to be somewhat off.

...But it's snowing now so I'll be hitting the treadmill soon of course.

Running on the treadmill is the one thing I'll trust my watch HR monitor for. I go back and forth between an indoor track and a treadmill, and the mph numbers seem to be way off. So I just aim for around the same HR on the treadmill as off, and that seems to work.

I am having the same issue. Bought my home treadmill (new) about a year ago. It has ALWAYS felt much more difficult than outside or any other treadmill. At the gym, I can run sub-7:00 miles forever (10+ miles) on the treadmill at 1% Incline. Marathon pace (outside) right around 7:10; faster for shorter distances. I can barely run an 8:30-9 min mile — for only 3-4 miles — on my home treadmill on 0% incline. With COVID I’m on it so much more often, and it is making me crazy.

I experience this. I find any pace on the treadmill tends to feel about 30-60 seconds faster/more difficult than it should. Running a single mile on the treadmill feel like it lasts forever, and even at a pace I should find quite easy it is wholly unpleasant.

I have a few theories why, although I'm not convinced by any of them...

Lack of air-flow leads to overheating.

Maybe higher CO2 concentration

Soft road-running shoes shoes + soft belt = poor energy return.

Constant pace: maybe I'm just not used to holding a specific constant pace and therefore my efficiency drops?

Psychological: It's boring, there's no scenery, the numbers go up slowly and are constantly in view.

I had the same suspicion for quite some time after buying my Sole treadmill, it seemed way harder to run at a given pace on the treadmill than outside. I did the measurement math on the belt and came up with the treadmill was around 3-4% faster than the pace stated on the screen. Anyone find this happen to them?