My treadmill is a big, fat liar.

I HATE treadmill running for the simple reason that it feels much, much harder in terms of physical effort than running outdoors, but produces far less exciting results; for what feels like one and a half times more effort, I travel a far shorter distance.  Or so I thought...

My treadmill is around 15 years old and its most high-tech feature is a motor.  It has a thingy I can move up and down to increase and decrease speed, a "start over" button, and a couple little windows that show speed, distance, time and calories burned.  Incline has two measurements: up and down.  I'd guess up to be about a 15-20% grade, while down is flat.  Based on perceived effort and cadence, I've long figured its data was off... but I'm now realizing it's very, very off.

I used the Nike+ app that magically tracks pace and distance via my iPhone for my last couple treadmill sessions.  Here's one session, according to Nike+ and according to my treadmill:

 

Um... that's a mighty big difference in distance! 

In the end, I don't really trust Nike+, either, so I took the average of the two distances (time was within 40 seconds of one another) and called it good.  Strangely, I feel a LOT better about my treadmill now! I still can't trust its data, but I know to trust my level of effort now.  And it totally explains why running outdoors feels so much easier; turns out I've been running HARD on the 'mill all this time. 

Oh Treadmill, How Do I Hate Thee?

Let me count the ways.

I used to love my treadmill.  Really, I did.  In fact, I couldn’t conceive of running outdoors, so pleasant were my indoor walks, during which I passed the time watching DVDs of my favorite old shows (Dallas, West Wing, Sex & the City and Beverly Hills 90210, in case you’re wondering; yes, I have eclectic taste.)

But Leo and I can’t run at the same time on the treadmill, so we’ve taken the majority of our training runs to the street.  Last night, though, I returned to the treadmill when faced with a torrential thunderstorm.

It sucked.  I always read that running on a treadmill is supposed to be easier, thanks to extra cushioning and having a belt do a little of the work for you.  My treadmill clearly hasn’t read the same material.  First of all, it’s almost 20 years old and has never once been serviced.  It’s also very, very low-tech; it does have a motor, but that’s about it – no digital anything, just a slide to control speed and an old Timex-like display that shows speed, mileage and calories burned.  It’s like the Honda Civic of exercise machines – cheap, simple and reliable.

But I question that last part… just how reliable is ol’ Bessie, as I’ll now refer to her?  Because, according to Bessie’s display, I was walking and running at exactly the same speeds, at the same intervals I’ve been doing outdoors – but it was way, WAY harder than anything I’ve done for weeks!  Burning muscle pain.  Lungs gasping for more air.  Knee pain, ankle pain, even shoulder pain.  40 minutes on Bessie was pure torture, while I'd set a new personal distance record only days earlier, doing 4 miles with a 15:11 mile pace, outdoors and could have easily gone another few miles.  I strongly suspect that Bessie’s settings are highly inaccurate.  I also think she has zero amount of cushion and all the DVDs in the world won’t make up for creating my own cooling breeze by actually moving forward through airspace.

I’m beginning to dread the long, hot Florida summer, when daily thunderstorms and heat indexes in the 100s will render outdoor running impossible on a regular basis.  And I’ll need to be putting in more and more long runs in training for my first half-marathon... I barely made it through 2.5 miles last night – I can’t fathom 7 or 8 with Bessie!  Stay tuned to see if Bessie gets the boot in favor of a fancier apparatus, or if I can rig her up to meet my new needs…