2 1/2 hours @ 10% grade?!?

I ran 3 miles on Wednesday up a grade which averages over 12% (1970' gain) and I'm old, not in particularly good shape right now and a cardiac patient (not to mention that I'm boring). As for the differences between this and a treadmill, this trail is quite rocky, is not a consistent slope and is eroded. I think the main difference between this and running on the flat is that you hurt in different areas - feet, heels, lower back, yadda yadda. On the rare occasions where I've run on a treadmill, it seems like it needs to be at 5% grade to feel like running on flat ground. But I very rarely run on treadmills - maybe once every 10 years.

Hey "Boring Old Man", your handle should read Senile Old Man. You need to put treadmill on 5% to make it feel like running on the flat? I don't think so.

No need to be mean to me. It was a typo. I meant to type .5%

kmaclam wrote:

Hey "Boring Old Man", your handle should read Senile Old Man. You need to put treadmill on 5% to make it feel like running on the flat? I don't think so.

Boring Old Man wrote:

No need to be mean to me. It was a typo. I meant to type .5%

kmaclam wrote:

Hey "Boring Old Man", your handle should read Senile Old Man. You need to put treadmill on 5% to make it feel like running on the flat? I don't think so.

Sadly people do throw around numbers like 5% or 3% when trying to compare a treadmill pace.

The treadmill will be very similar in comparison to a road run in relation to elevation. The one big difference is that the road won't be a consistent grade. It may be 14% for a while and then 7%. It will vary which will make it a little harder than a steady effort on a treadmill. A trail will have even more variance and the footing will be much worse. I generally run a minute per mile slower on trail than road.

Here is a great calculator to estimate the difficulty of running on an incline. I have used it for years to calculate paces on the treadmill and roads. A few years ago, I took some splits from the Japanese Ekiden which had a couple hilly sections and plugged in the numbers. The pace the runners ran were very consistent with their equivalent pace on flat roads.

If you plug 10% incline at 10 minute/mile pace, it shows 6:53 pace with 0 incline.

On 10% grade which is ridiculously steep btw, running emphasizes aerobic engine over specific running ability. I wouldn't be too surprised if a (a, not all, not most) top nordic skier could beat a (a, not all, not most) top marathoner going up 10% grade for ~20 miles.

Going up 10% grade you're basically removing the elastic component of the stride and minimizing stride length to the point that even someone with non-elite biomechanics could compensate in a way that's not possible on the flats.

Of course, it's possible I have no idea what I'm talking about.

disgraceful_admin wrote:

Of course, it's possible I have no idea what I'm talking about.

check out former olympic xc skier on washington last year, at 4:04 in this video:

dudes carrying about 50 extra pounds, but mixing it up with rickey gates and simon gutierrez. makes me think most runners should try a deadlift or two from time to time.

Thanks for the suggestion!

pike's though you actually gain the altitude and have to deal with the lower oxygen pressure

upper montane wrote:

Pikes Peak Ascent is 11% for 13.3 miles; only a handful or break 2:30 each year on the ascent, plus a few more doing the round trip.

Yep, you finish at approximately 14,100', with the last half or quarter of the race being quite difficult because of the footing.

runfarfast wrote:

pike's though you actually gain the altitude and have to deal with the lower oxygen pressure

upper montane wrote:

Pikes Peak Ascent is 11% for 13.3 miles; only a handful or break 2:30 each year on the ascent, plus a few more doing the round trip.

Senile Old Man wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion!

Nice. I'd like to see Senile Old Man be an ever-present addition to the LetsRun commentary.

Boring Old Man wrote:

No need to be mean to me. It was a typo. I meant to type .5%

kmaclam wrote:

Hey "Boring Old Man", your handle should read Senile Old Man. You need to put treadmill on 5% to make it feel like running on the flat? I don't think so.

Mean to you??? I don't have a mean bone in my body. My Grandmother would say I'm "mild as milk". Was just a lame attempt at humor. Now go find your teeth, tube socks and your shoe horn and go for a run!

kmaclam wrote:

Boring Old Man wrote:

No need to be mean to me. It was a typo. I meant to type .5%

Mean to you??? I don't have a mean bone in my body. My Grandmother would say I'm "mild as milk". Was just a lame attempt at humor. Now go find your teeth, tube socks and your shoe horn and go for a run!

kmaclan:

The second "Boring Old Man" post wasn't made by me. I REALLY try to be factual and not judgmental in posts. Your "tube socks" comment is funny. And let your grandmother know that I'm "Safe As Milk" (RIP Don Van Vliet).

On the subject of objective measurements, back when I wasn't quite so old or senile (but still boring), I had two workouts both of which took about 2 hours. One was 2 hours on a track where I would typically be just over 16 miles (7:30 pace). The other was hill repeats on a 5/8 of a mile (1 km) hill that climbed 500' - so about 15% grade on average. I typically ran 7 repeats in 2 hours (did 8 once) and my *up* split was under 10 minutes and sometimes under 9. So that's roughly 14:30 to 15:00 minute pace or twice as slow as my flat pace on a 15% grade.

Right in the middle was a 7 mile climb of 3000' (8%). I think my best pace on that was 11 minute miles.

So my slow down was about 50% on an 8% grade and 100% on a 15% grade.

For you SoCal folks, the 500' climb is off Greenleaf and Rose in Whittier and the 7 mile climb is Harding Truck Trail (the first 7 miles).

Well in any event. Whether it was a typo or not, Annie did not fare well in NYC today. Anyone have any details on her derailment? And any word on Ritz? Did he twist his ankle out there or what?

kmaclam wrote:

Well in any event. Whether it was a typo or not, Annie did not fare well in NYC today. Anyone have any details on her derailment? And any word on Ritz? Did he twist his ankle out there or what?

Annie tweeted " Annie Bersagel ‏@AnnieBersagel 23h23 hours ago

Out at mile 21 w/ trashed quads. Went into race a little beat up, but hopeful. Ready for R&R in Oslo before coming back stronger. #IWill

"

Ritz reportedly had an existing heel injury.