Making Treadmill Runs Count

Treadmill running is part of my regular routine, whether I like it or not. More treadmill running in the dark and cold of winter to be sure, but it is still part of my routine even in good weather, because there are always going to be weekdays when I just cannot bring myself to get up early enough in the morning, so my bag gets packed to run at work. I always get a little angry at myself about this, when I am driving to work and see how great the weather is, but it doesn't stop it from happening at least once or twice a week.

So, during my elliptical half, one of the things I was thinking about was how to make my treadmill runs count more. My training for the Colfax Half starts tomorrow, and if I want to beat my Vegas time, it is going to require some hard work, and I think one of the key points is that those treadmill runs should be helping me GET somewhere with my running goals, they shouldn't just be "filler" runs, that I do because I need to get it done, they should be actively helping me run better or faster. At least, that was my thought.

This morning I was trying to think of a way to make that happen, and I thought it would be good to make a weekly "treadmill goal". So, whatever runs end up on the treadmill, I would have a certain minimal standard (of speed and/or incline and/or distance) for that run.

So, for this week, my treadmill goal is a speed of 12 minute mile and an incline of 1%, for every treadmill run. No "I don't really want to go at all today, so I'll go but I won't do an incline!" or "I'm just going to go really slow today, I'm just not feeling fast!"

We'll see how it goes.