Why is treadmill running harder for me than roads?

This is very common. Usually it’s a combination of calibration (treadmill says you are going slower than you are) and psychology.

Newest fanciest treadmills at equinox absorb a ton of energy.. good for joints they say but they kill energy return and speed.

I experienced the same recently. I think it is mostly psychological: you probably feel more uncomfortable on the treadmill (warm for example); you do not have much to distract you, including, as you say, no small variations; and there is a fear of the unknown in cranking up the speed.

I tend to find that if I do dare to push up the speed, it goes fine, and one psychologically adjusts after a while. In my case I also tend to use much quicker paces in the rest parts of interval sessions on the treadmill, because if I slow down to the jogging pace I'd use on the track it feels terribly slow, but this has more of an effect than one might think on the paces one can hit in the repetitions.

Heat retention indoors, wrong calibration, wrong incline, boredom.

Thanks for the responses so far. Calibration is something I had not considered. I'm not sure how I would even check that but it's something maybe to look into.

Psychology I'm sure is a part of it. At the faster paces on the treadmill I feel like I'm hyper focused on not falling off the treadmill and not able to relax and run naturally. On the road I'm able to blank out my mind and really give my all in a way I don't think I could on the treadmill.

The comment about energy absorption is also really interesting to me. I do notice that on those weeks of running hard on roads, I had a lot more leg soreness and knee soreness and had to take a lot more easy days to deal with that. I never have those kind of issues on the treadmill. So maybe the tradeoff for that is less speed.

I wish that cranking up the treadmill worked lol I've tried that and end up turning it back down after a couple minutes. Maybe there is a comfort level to it but I think it's more than that.

Couple weeks ago I ran 5km on the treadmill and 5km on a gravel road at the same 9 minute pace about 2 hours apart from each other to see the difference. The outdoor running felt like a cooldown after the treadmill feeling like an actual workout.

I don't hae any issue going slow on the treadmill either, it's the exact opposite for me. On my easy days it's nice to have the treadmill set on 11 minute pace which is appropriate for how slow I am overall. It's very difficult for me to run that slow on the roads. My "same effort" pace on roads would be around 9:45 compared to 11 min on the treadmill .

If you want to check calibration, it is sometimes possible to find the length of the track on manufacturers/sales websites. (Just make sure you have the right model number).

From there you can then set your speed, figure out how long it takes to do 10 or 20 rotations, then do the math to figure out if that correlates to listed treadmill pace.

The only time I have done this, I found that the treadmill was not accurate at the higher paces so I'd test at a few different speeds.

I have the same problem. For larger runners I think it has to do with forward momentum.

Kenaneeser Beckelay wrote:

I have the same problem. For larger runners I think it has to do with forward momentum.

I would love to hear you explain that.

Btw OP same for me. I chalked it up to bad treadmill calibration.

Most people's form is constrained when they first run on a treadmill, their bodies haven't figured out that treadmill running is basically the same movement as running outside.

Don't worry too much about calibration. Accuracy on the treadmill is difficult because the belt doesn't move at a constant speed, it slows down when your foot lands and presses it to the deck due to the friction. A footpod that you calibrated outside might give you a better idea.

Hardloper wrote:

Most people's form is constrained when they first run on a treadmill, their bodies haven't figured out that treadmill running is basically the same movement as running outside.

Don't worry too much about calibration. Accuracy on the treadmill is difficult because the belt doesn't move at a constant speed, it slows down when your foot lands and presses it to the deck due to the friction. A footpod that you calibrated outside might give you a better idea.

I've figured out a way to improve on the mental aspects of treadmill workouts. Not treadmill running, as in the boring factor, which hasn't been a problem for me. The problem is feeling uncomfortable running at tempos or intervals on the treadmill compared to running on tracks or a flat gravel road.

What I've tried is calibrating myself to the pace on treadmill during my easy runs. For example I want to do a treadmill tempo run around 7:30 per mile pace. So on my regular training days I will do something like this:

Set treadmill to 7 min pace: run for 20 seconds - 1 minute

click down the speed by .1mph: run for 20-30 seconds

click down the speed by .1 mph: run for 15-30 seconds

then keep clicking down every 15-30 until I reach back to my normal easy pace. Doing this once or twice in a run doesn't take a lot of effort but you do start to get more use to the speed over a few days. When it comes time to do the tempo run the 7:30 treadmill almost feels as normal as on the road.

Perhaps if any other beginners are having this issue in the future they might give it a shot.

cyanide wrote:

Heat retention indoors, wrong calibration, wrong incline, boredom.

Holy shyte is this true. The room temperature in my basement increases by at least 3F over the course of a treadmill session. Which sucks in the winter because the basement is already warm af and I can't run the AC.

Also some treadmills are pre-inclined a few degrees. I realized that my treadmill set at 0% incline was actually around 2.5% incline and I had to put a piece of plywood under the back to level it off.