I ran 18 miles at 5:50 pace on my new treadmill (a peloton) this morning. I know treadmill running is lame, but I had to stay home and watch the kids while my wife ran some errands. That is about the pace of my marathon PR, but it didn’t feel extremely difficult. I ran it at 1.5% incline. I’m wondering, is that accurate at all? Can you trust a treadmill or is it always significantly easier than outside?
It’s kind of a question of running/body mechanics.
For me, I’d say treadmill running is a bit more difficult, because I overheat super easily and have to run at a faster cadence that feels unnatural starting at about 6:00 pace.
The general consensus is that 1% incline adjusts for wind resistance, so it’s possible you can run even faster.
It’s possible that with a new treadmill the belt isn’t calibrated though, you should look up and see if your treadmill bases distance off of belt rotations, or what the pace is set to on the dashboard. It’ll for sure be accurate with the former, but may require calibration with the latter.
Never going to be 100% accurate.
If it felt a bit too easy, or easier than it has outside, then it probably was too easy. Doesn’t mean that it wasn’t still a good workout or that you didn’t get benefit from it.
I prefer to go by pace over effort like most runners, but on the treadmill you have to keep perceived effort in the front of your mind the whole time.
treadquestion wrote:
I’m wondering, is that accurate at all? Can you trust a treadmill or is it always significantly easier than outside?
Trust but verify.
Have a crack at a half outside next weekend or weekend after when your partner can cover for you.
I wouldn’t bother with worrying about the accuracy of the treadmill itself unless it’s really shoddy, it’s good enough.
To answer the OP, no, treadmills do not duplicate your outside running. My experience with them (over 20 years worth) is that the treadmill pace translates to approx 30 seconds slower per mile outside.
stan the corgi wrote:
To answer the OP, no, treadmills do not duplicate your outside running. My experience with them (over 20 years worth) is that the treadmill pace translates to approx 30 seconds slower per mile outside.
That's nonsense. Maybe a few seconds per mile, but not 30. Not even close.
I live in Michigan, so I'm used to a lot of treadmill running in the winter when the roads are icy and dangerous. Based my experiences, I feel that the treadmill is about ten seconds per mile faster than running outside. My easy pace is usually around 7:50 per mile on the treadmill, and 8:00 flat outside.
One year, I did all of my long intervals on a treadmill including some 5K paced mile repeats. These reps were around 5:15 per mile and my actual race pace a week later ended up being 5:25. Two weeks after that, I went to the track and did the same workout outside and average 5:25 per mile.
BTW, I never run on an incline. It's kind of pointless. What scientific proof backs that a 1% incline "emulates outdoor running"?
MY Experience, not your experience.
Mr. 800m wrote:
BTW, I never run on an incline. It's kind of pointless. What scientific proof backs that a 1% incline "emulates outdoor running"?
The lack of air resistance has been discussed for years but here's a quick search hit for you -
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8887211/treadquestion wrote:
I ran 18 miles at 5:50 pace on my new treadmill (a peloton) this morning. I know treadmill running is lame, but I had to stay home and watch the kids while my wife ran some errands. That is about the pace of my marathon PR, but it didn’t feel extremely difficult. I ran it at 1.5% incline. I’m wondering, is that accurate at all? Can you trust a treadmill or is it always significantly easier than outside?
You have to calibrate your treadmill.
First measure the band length. Second measure the time it takes for 10 rotations with you running. Divide bandlength*10/time and you get the speed.
Simple as that, you are welcome.
sub_3_is_the_goal wrote:
stan the corgi wrote:
To answer the OP, no, treadmills do not duplicate your outside running. My experience with them (over 20 years worth) is that the treadmill pace translates to approx 30 seconds slower per mile outside.
That's nonsense. Maybe a few seconds per mile, but not 30. Not even close.
More like 30-60 seconds slower than outside. Get a good foot pod to get a little better idea of pace.
stan the corgi wrote:
To answer the OP, no, treadmills do not duplicate your outside running. My experience with them (over 20 years worth) is that the treadmill pace translates to approx 30 seconds slower per mile outside.
Wow. You got to admit, this is kind of severe. Makes you an outlier for sure. For me, since I'm not on a treadmill much, it's kind of a novelty & I get up for it. That & the fact it's in a/c gives me a good 10 - 15 seconds 'boost'.
peloton likes to beef up numbers for users to make them feel special. For instance the bikes add 200w of what a user can really do in real life. generation #snowflake.
There's very little correlation between running outdoors and "running" on the treadmill. The numbers displayed (pace, miles, etc) only measure what the belt is doing.
i took my stryd footpod on the tread friday for a workout since we got hit the by the snow friday morning in nyc. Even on a relatively newer model of a woodway was going 15 seconds per mile slower than what the tread was saying
this is it wrote:
There's very little correlation between running outdoors and "running" on the treadmill. The numbers displayed (pace, miles, etc) only measure what the belt is doing.
Yep
I ran solely on the treadmill for about a year at one point…..it took about a month to relearn how to run outside and yes, the pace is waaaaaay off.
treadquestion wrote:
I ran 18 miles at 5:50 pace on my new treadmill (a peloton) this morning. I know treadmill running is lame, but I had to stay home and watch the kids while my wife ran some errands. That is about the pace of my marathon PR, but it didn’t feel extremely difficult. I ran it at 1.5% incline. I’m wondering, is that accurate at all? Can you trust a treadmill or is it always significantly easier than outside?
TM kinda sucks for a lot of reasons, but the training effect is fine. The muscles in your legs are still having to produce force and the necessary stimulations are there. Also in some cases it makes perfect sense: if there is a snowstorm outside or it is just icy. A slip and fall may do a lot of harm to your training.
It might be lame but you might be too young to know the story of 2000 Olympic Marathon trials winner Christine Clark.
If you want to check the accuracy of the speed reading, it can be done
https://www.topendsports.com/fitness/treadmill-calibration.htmI like running on the treadmill, but I also haven't found that speed/incline on a TM perfectly corresponds to outdoor running. It also depends on the treadmill - some of them may not accurately measure speed, some may be "pre-inclined" so a 1% incline could actually be 3%, etc. Plus the treadmill absorbs a ton of force compared to running on pavement (I find the feel of TM running to be somewhat similar to trail running).
So I usually run by HR on treadmills, trying to keep the HR in the 138-145 range for easy runs. That way I don't need to stress about exactly mimicking outdoor conditions on the TM.
FWIW I can usually run 30sec/mile faster on the TM than outdoors at the same pace, which makes sense.
You could try Runn NPE
https://www.codybeals.com/2014/02/running-numbers-how-much-easier-are/Mr. 800m wrote:
BTW, I never run on an incline. It's kind of pointless. What scientific proof backs that a 1% incline "emulates outdoor running"?
(Skip to the free body diagram for a basic explanation)
I can usually do interval workouts about 10s/mile faster outside than on my treadmill (1% incline). And when I used different treadmills at the gym, each one varied +/- 10 seconds. But long runs are actually a bit easer on the treadmill than outside because 1) the deck is more forgiving than a road so your legs don't get beat up and 2) not baking under the sun.