Wind in the hair. Wearing short shorts. And fun ass headbands in the outdoors amongst others who enjoy making me feel like the idiot I am.
There’s not much better than running outdoors and getting catcalled by all the boys whom want to attend my milkshake in the yard.
(I think I went over my own head there)
At the same time, running can be a pain in the ass on a treadmill. Literally staring at numbers as they go up way slower IRL than in your head. I look up and I’ve only been pushing for 25 seconds…why does this suck so much, some days?
Well, it’s different. Very different.
When running outdoors you have the ability to dial up pace, or dial it back at a whim. no buttons, no guessing. When you’re on a treadmill, life is made difficult by locking in an intensity and time without the knowledge of your body’s natural needs. You could think that running at a 10 minute pace will cool you down – only to find out it’s too damn difficult.
On the roads, your stride length and cadence are pretty flexible.
On a treadmill, you get stuck between the railings and it changes the tempo of your run.
EXHIBIT A – here is what my ‘normal’ cadence looks like. This was from a 5k run in Salt Lake City…
Not perfect – but you can see it normalize after the five minute mark when my primary objective wasn’t to avoid people.
EXHIBIT B – Here is what the cadence looked like on a treadmill run this morning…
Here you can see my average cadence running for 10 minutes was ~163. I got demoralized and turned my run into an uphill walk. Which was more fun, at least!
All in all, not a huge difference, but it really felt different and that’s why I’m making this post. My average cadence outdoors was ~175. While the treadmill cadence was ~163. I’d love to get the cadence up a litttttttle higher. But I now realize the treadmill isn’t a great place to increase that number!
Thanks for being exactly who you are!
Stella Fitness 