How To Set A Treadmill Workout
As a runner training for a particular event, it’s likely that you’ll be following a plan of sorts. Whether that’s a plan you found online to help you run your first marathon, or set for you by a coach, it’ll probably involve interval training. These intervals will be time or distance based and there’ll be a certain pace or range that you’ll be targeting. Running intervals on a treadmill can be extremely beneficial as you can control your environment meaning a flat, smooth surface with no wind, rain, or traffic stops.
If you do decide to do your interval session on a treadmill then here’s my go to guide of preprogramming the workout on your watch to make it as straightforward as possible. I’ll use a 4 x 1km workout programmed by my coach as an example.
Whether you’re using a Garmin, Polar, Coros, or Apple watch, you’ll be aware that without GPS data, treadmill mode can be extremely inaccurate as your watch tries to calculate the speed at which the treadmill belt is moving based on your vertical movement, cadence, and arm swing. This results in massive discrepancies between the data on your watch and the data the treadmill displays. Due to this, I never set treadmill workouts on my watch based on distance. However, if you’re able to control the pace at which you’re running using the treadmill settings then it’s possible to know exactly how far you will ‘travel’ in a specific amount of time.
My target pace for the 1km reps is 3:35 minutes per kilometer (3:35/km). I use an app on my phone called ‘Running Calculator’ to convert my pace of 3:35/km into miles per hour (mph). This is the speed that I’ll set on the treadmill for my reps.
In this case, you can see that my set speed will be 10.4mph or 16.74km per hour.
As my session involves 1km reps, it’s very easy to calculate that in order to hit this distance, I need to run at 10.4mph for 3 minutes and 35 seconds in order to complete my interval. if I were doing 400m intervals, I would merely change the ‘value’ next to ‘custom KM’ to 0.4 (400m being 0.4 of a kilometre). I would then see the time of 1:26.
Next step now that I have my interval duration and treadmill speed is to input them into my Garmin Connect workout. Again, if you’re using Polar or Coros (or another brand) you’ll be able to do this using their respective apps.
I set my workout based on duration with a 13:30 warm up at 8.3mph. (3km at 4:30/km pace). The same for my cool down. I use the ‘Notes’ section to add in my treadmill speeds so it’s easy to remember them once I get going.
The interval section has a Run of 3:35 and Recovery of 2:00 duration respectively. I personally do standing recoveries when treadmill training as otherwise it can become a faff when switching between speeds.
Note: when doing standing recoveries on a treadmill be careful when mounting/dismounting a moving belt. you’ll also need to regularly put you foot on the belt otherwise it will automatically switch off and end workout.
Once you’ve saved and uploaded your workout you’re ready to go and smash the session! Your watch will now automatically bleep to signal the beginning and end of each rep. This means that rather than having to watch your distance slowly creeping up on the machine, or trying to read your watch screen as you’re hanging on to the pace, you can focus on giving your all to the session.
If you want to take it even further, here’s a guide how to set your interval and easy paces on the treadmill before you get underway - meaning you only have to hit a button to toggle between the two speeds.
After your workout rather than hitting ‘Save’ on your watch, scroll down to ‘Save and Calibrate’. This will allow you to set the total distance you ran during the session and result in more accurate data when tracking your training. Due to this, I’d recommend to total your overall distance beforehand. In my example my warm up and cool down total 6km and my intervals are 4km (giving 10km overall).
