The inside of an airport, plane, rental car, and hotel room has been a norm for me for the past year. Having said that, trying to keep some sort of fitness has been tough for the obvious reasons. One alternative to get fit -huge mental block- is the treadmill. So why do I cringe when I think of spending as little as 30 minutes on the mill? To be completely honest, the treadmill keeps you honest. Either go this pace (that you set) or fall off. Things don't seem to be changing in my work space so I've got to change my mentality. The treadmill is my friend and I WILL embrace the self inflicted pain.
Paul Dewitt, my coach two years ago, was very creative with the treadmill. One workout in particular that I still use today is the Kenyan cutdown. This involves a 2 mile w/u and c/d, then starting at 7MPH make a progression of 0.1MPH every 0.25 mile, all flat. Each time I tried to "one up" myself and so far my record is 10.3 MPH. Each workout gives you about 12 myles, give it a try.
This morning in SoCal I embraced the TM and got creative. I have seen some tweets lately on Anita Ortiz and her hill workout, which is 15% at 11:15 pace for an hour. Truth be told, I am not ready for that so I decided to ramp up. My new hill workout takes the same idea of the Kenyan cutdown in the sense it is progression and getting to LT. Here's what the guidelines look like:
- 0.5 mile w/u and c/d @ 6MPH
- Then 6% at 6MPH for 0.5 mile
- Next jump up 2% every 0.5 mile and see what you can get to
- Once you can't go anymore drop down to 10% @ 6MPH for 2 myles.
This morning here is where I made it to:
- 0.5 mile w/u and c/d @ 6MPH
- 6%, 8%, 10%, 12%, 14% @ 6MPH for 0.5 mile each
- 2 myles @ 10% and 6 MPH
- 5 myles 2111 ft climbing and 45 minutes
I tapped out at 14% so now I have a good baseline of my fitness. Each time I will try and "one up" myself and see where it goes. Obviously I am seeing the benefits of the TM now, can't say I like the mill, but will embrace it as long as I'm away from my hometown hills of Colorado. I am seeing the TM as an endless hill with lots of O2 in this California air.
I'd be interested to know what you can do on this workout and what you think of it.
16 comments:
I'm thinking the most beneficial piece to this is your shift in mentality. Recognizing that your work schedule isn't going to change, you instead are changing what you do have control over.
That being said, I've been fortunate enough to never been in the position where I've NEEDED to hit the mill for more than 30 minutes.
Variations of the Kenyan cutdown, whether they be dictated by speed or grade (or both simultaneously) have got to be the staple of the mill. Good stuff.
ayyyyye carrumba, do i have to do this?
Hopefully this plan backfires and you toe the line in Silverton in horrible shape!
This one is on tap for me once I switch over to vertical work.
I've spent my fair share of time on the Mill and have done variations of the Kenyan, both flat and on an increasing incline. Not sure what the results are as I'm extremely lax on my record keeping, but I always feel like I've had a good workout, all while keeping an eye on the kids :)
Looking forward to seeing you run a good Squaw in June!
The TM can be a good tool. Seems like everytime I do aggressive "hill" workouts on the TM I get injured. In the summer of 2010 I came down with a nasty case of plantar fasciitis after doing some insane TM hill workouts at night. Then in November of this year I tweaked my Achilles after a hill workout on the TM--which then led to a case of post-tib. Strangely, I don't get injured if I do real hills or mountain trails. My new TM policy is flat and fast...or flat and recovery pace. But no hills on the TM for me!
Wyatt
This sounds absolutely miserable. I'm going to try it. Way to embrace the TM!
Awesome! I was dreading today's baby-naptime-mill-run. Can't wait!
My trails are buried under snow from November to June, so the mill is my friend. I like to set an ascent goal (usually 5K') and vary speed and angle until I reach it. My mill cranks to 40%, so I can still carry an aerobic heartrate at 2-3 mph. I start slower/steeper and peak with faster/less steep such as 6mph @ 10-15% grade. Since I have added these workouts, I have no trouble hitting 25K' of gain a week with little stress because it is slow and there is no downhill running. I am careful to add in these downhill sessions. My mill does 6% downhill and I add downhill specific workouts on trails later as races approach.
Jeremy
Wow Jeremy you are warming up with my peak. Vertical monster you are! Ever thought about Hardrock? You'd be good.
I will have to give this a try sometime...it is actually pretty similar to a VO2max test except in the test you only go for 10-15 minutes before you can't make it any longer. Definitely painful if you have never done it.
ps. I would agree with Sean - glad to see that you are making it work despite the less than ideal schedule.
I guess you could say that I have THOUGHT about it...and sent them a big fat check and application a few times. I am a decent runner, but really bad at lotteries. Someday, I'll climb those mountains. Or, I could just program Virginius Pass into my mill and pretend for free:)
Ok, I tried that Kenyan cutdown last night on the mill. Since I'm not quite the running stud you are I only managed to get to 8.6mph but I'm feeling it today. Thanks for the workout idea.
nice Jim! It's a tough workout and now you have a baseline.
I'm also not the stud that you are, but I have to be on the treadmill quite a bit. I only logged about 90K on Delta last year, but some of my travel winds up in Sweden. It's actually a great place to run ... in the summer ... it's only light for about 5 hours a day in winter. And there is lots of ice, so the TM it is ... I usually don't have much time either so have to fit in hard fast workouts. So I do a variation on what you listed but instead of distance, I do strides. I start at about 7mph and go up .1 every 80 strides (pretty darn close to a minute). I keep going until I'm pretty much gassed and then back off every 80 strides by .2 until back to 7. I finish by putting it back up to 110% of desired race pace for the last mile. So this workout is not so definate as sometimes the gas runs out sooner than others. But it keeps my mind busy counting and moving the TM up and down ... I'm easily distracted ... ;-) ... am running in the moab race in about 10 days. Was hoping for a PR but got really sick in early Feb and set me back. Hoping to break 1:32 so we'll see ... 10th year in though so get automatic bid if I ever want to go back! Hope to run into you some time ... sorry for the bad pun
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