Discussion: Treadmills are much easier

My standard threshold session is 20-21 minutes at 10mph and 1% grade. It is clearly easier than the comparable 3 1/3 - 3 1/2 miles in 20-21 minutes on flat ground would be.

feet, have you tried running at 1.5% or 2% grade? I read somewhere that 1.5% more closely approximated outdoor running (wind resistance), but I generally use 2% even on a machine where I can enter incline at 0.1% granularity.

Hmm. I have always used 1% from some vague sense of compensating for that. There is a tradeoff between unnatural impact stress versus realistic times. I am not really that concerned with making the times comparable between indoors and outdoors, since I don't compare them. I just wanted to pour scorn on Ian's point that treadmills are harder (another reason they are easier is that the surface has more 'give' than asphalt or concrete); but I confess I haven't thought about it that hard.

Huh. Maybe I just suck at running. I think heart rate is the most objective, accessible measure of effort, so I may take some data running on a treadmill and outside for a comparison.

I also run at 1% grade.

maybe you loathe the treadmills so much it actually is harder on you.

Maybe the treadmills loathe feet. Maybe they long for the day where they are free to just spin unencumbered by the repetitive pounding.

The idea of the inner life of treadmills opens whole new vistas of the imagination for me. What else are they thinking, hoping, dreaming in their small and treadmilly brains? What do treadmill poets write about? What is their family life like? Who are their prophets, politicians, bicycle repairers?