5 minute mile on the treadmill

If a 5 minute mile felt that easy on a treadmill w/o any speed work, you will go sub 9:50

seriously?! at that point I would have a shot at hitting 9:30 by may! that would be awesome!

Daniel88 wrote:

If a 5 minute mile felt that easy on a treadmill w/o any speed work, you will go sub 9:50

ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE ADVICE

Go out conservatively and try to negative split. 10:30s would be a good goal. Treadmill is deceptively easy.

Definitely sub 10, if not sub 9:50. Treadmills running is underestimated. I ran a 5:02 treadmill time trial @95% and ran a 10:15 3200. And that was after doing speed work, late in the season. You are definitely set for sub 9:50

It’s certainly not a bad sign that your treadmill mile felt relatively easy, but it’s really going to be difficult to gauge where you’re at based off that.

A few variables that could affect the relationship between your time trial and racing fitness include:

1) The incline to which you set your treadmill. When you’re on a treadmill, you don’t have to push through the air in front of you like you would on a track. Think of it like an extreme version of drafting, or having a 12 mph tailwind constantly at your back. As a very loose rule of thumb, the cost of running on a track with no wind is similar to that on a treadmill at 2%, and the oxygen cost of running 12 mph at 0% grade is similar to 10.8 mph (5:33) at a 2% grade (per Jack Daniels).

2) The conditions around your treadmill. The main thing I’m thinking of is if you have a fan near the treadmill. Since you aren’t moving air particles, it can be difficult for your body to cool itself without something to create a breeze. This would result in an increased heart rate and would make treadmill running seem more difficult.

3) The quality of the treadmill. It’s easier to run on a good, sturdy treadmill with a wide belt than a narrow, rickety one that’s made for walking. Also, it matters how well the machine is calibrated. A setting of 12.0 mph could really be 11.8 or 12.2.

4) How good you are at the treadmill relative to the track. Most runners are better on some surfaces than others, and that’s true for treadmills as well. For instance, I’m terrible on trails and most cross country courses relative to the roads and track.

Regardless, you have a few weeks where you’ll be doing work on the track prior to your race, so you’ll have better information on which to set expectations and pace yourself.

Lots of great points from Sub 6:00!

Adding on from some of my experience w/ treadmills. This less solid of a belt involved the more likely the treadmill is slower than actual pace. Even if the belt moves at a calibrated pace, a "looser" belt (think cheapo gym treadmill vs. a Woodway TM belt) will slow down at each step as the weight of your body affects its speed, effectively making it slower than outside even *if* it is calibrated correctly. Most average gym treadmills at 12 mph read at best 5:20-5:30 via my footpod, whereas a more expensive solid belt treadmill is usually off by 5-10 seconds at most from my observations.

But yeah basically hard to know until you've calibrated yourself as far as efforts on the treadmill vs outside. Everyone is geared differently for different surfaces. Maybe during the season you can run similar tests and then in the future you'll be able to use the TM to make better estimates of your fitness!

I really hope I am sub 10 capable. But I am much much worse on the treadmill than every other surface I went 17:14 in cross country on a flat XC course but my first mile was WAAYYY fast like 5:03 or something around that so I probably could've went sub 17 if I was smarter and when I do treadmill long runs my 10 milers are usually at 8.6 - 8.7 mph or 6:59 - 6:53 a mile and its always rough at least mentally and I usually short stride on the treadmill. The treadmill in question is a narrow belt kind of shaky treadmill thats max speed is 12 mph. on the roads my long runs are usually 6:35 - 6:50 pace (normal day 6:40 is pretty effortless) and last Saturday I did a 10 miler at 6:28 average last mile under 6 minutes. specifically my first 5 miles were effortlessly at 6:40 and my last 5 were at 6:20 a little pushed with the last one like I said under 6.

bump would like one more opinion

Based on your 5k time I would think you’d be around the 10 minute mark in the 3200. You’re definitely gonna break 10 by the end of the season so I wouldn’t worry too much about the first meet, especially considering it’s on an indoor track that’s 300m for some reason. Championship season is what really matters.

I personally don’t trust treadmills for judging fitness because there’s too many variables that play out differently in an actual race. Either way, it’s a good sign that you felt good running as fast as you did so don’t stress too much.