Are Treadmill miles, still relevant miles?

never too cold wrote:

Treadmills suck. They are boring and pathetic. Dont give me this its too cold to run outside crap either. Its never too cold to run outside. And if you dont get bored running on the treadmill, you need to run more....hobby joggers

re: hobby joggers

I have known quite a few world class athletes who run on TMs as a supplement; Geb even runs on a TM at times.

Yankeedoodle wrote:

From what I read, you are probably a 2:12 marathoner who needs to re-train properly.

If you mean that I was probably capable of a 2:12 marathon with optimal training throughout my running career, that's possible, although I'm confident that the same could be said for many, many runners who have undertaken more conventional training programs. I'm not aware of anyone who has run faster than I did after manifesting so little talent in his early years of competitive running, so -- although I give serious consideration to many different views and theories about how to become a good runner -- I'm not inclined simply to defer to anyone else's opinions about how I might have run faster using some other training program. Moreover, although I have little doubt that I was capable of running faster than I did, it was never my goal just to run a little faster. I had specific goals that, for a variety of reasons, I believed I was unlikely to meet merely by trying to train like everyone else did.

I routinely do a 4x2miles @ Half Marathon pace workout on a treadmill. My HMP is 5:48 but on the treadmill I usually set it to 5:42 to "make up" for the ease off treadmill running, I also don't mess with an incline.

Really I don't overthink of "what's real running" and what isn't. I get a great workout from this, as good as running outside. When the weather sucks, it's nicer to hit the treadmill than freeze your face off.