Running Indoors vs Outdoors

Audio Transcript

Coach Dylan: Hi there, Runners Connect fans and friends. This is the Run to the Top Extra Kick Podcast. I will be answering your questions.

Today’s question comes from Tom.

Tom: Is there a big difference between running on a treadmill and running outside during the wintertime?

Dylan: Thank you Tom for submitting your question for us today and an extremely relevant one as a lot of us are experiencing a lot more snow fall and ice on the roads than we’ve seen previously this year.

The temperatures are getting much colder as well, and the days are becoming shorter. It gets harder to take our runs outdoors in certain locations of the world.

Research suggests that running on a treadmill and setting it to a 1% incline equals the energy cost of what it would take to run outdoors on a flat surface.

This could be of great use for you and for others having to bring the run indoors, knowing that we can get hop on the treadmill and it would be equal to running outdoors.

It’s also great not just for running in bad weather, but also a way to practice your race simulation and to practice fluid intake as well.

For those of us running longer distances, fluid intake becomes a crucial component of our training and we should learn what works and what doesn’t work and not a better way to do it then in a controlled conditioned area.

If you remember during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, it was very hot and humid for the marathon runners out there.

A lot of them took their runs indoors so that they could practice their fluid intake and practice race day simulation as much as possible.

I’ve talked to some pros who have taken the runs indoors just to practice the monotonous and long grinding feel of what it’s like to be in a marathon.

In an ideal search circumstance for a marathon runner, we want the race to be kind of boring for a long time until about later in the race where it really takes more mental and physical effort. There is no way to really practice this more than running on the treadmill.

I know a lot of you are smirking right now because a lot of us feel this way about the treadmill, but it could be helpful.

It’s also important to know that if we’re training for a race that outdoors, it’s important that we do get outdoors because we don’t learn how to pace on a treadmill. It negates from your ability to work up to pace and to consciously maintain it.

We’re lacking the sense or the aspect of pacing and what it feels like to begin a run and work our way up to our pace. Consciously and physically maintain that pace over a long period of time.

With the belt travelling underneath us, we don’t should worry about those things. We can just let our mind drift and wander and we just should run the pace.

When we’re running out doors, we had to be very consciously in cue and we have laser focus, especially in the late stages of a race whereas you just should keep your legs moving on treadmills.

It’s important that if you’re training for a race that’s on a trail or there’s a lot of down hills there’s not a whole lot that we can do except for putting stacks on the bottom of the treadmill which not everybody or very rare of us have access to.

It’s important that we get our important runs out on the road so that we can have this sense of pace and see what it feels like to run eight or nine minutes a mile or whatever your goal pace is. It’s very important for us to sense this and to have this under a bell.

As much of a physical benefit as a mental one, we can expect to only train on a treadmill and then expect to reach our goals fully on race day.

I’m sure it’s happened, and it sure happens all the time, but it’s never the same going from indoor to outdoor.

If we have access to running outdoors during this time of year and you live in a snowy area or somewhere where it’s not safe to run outside, I think it’s important for you to get outdoors.

This will help you practice and build your self-confidence up and basically just get yourself as race ready and prepared as possible.

On the treadmill there’s few obstacles that you can face whereas outdoors there’s so many different things.

It could be wind resistance, change in pace, or maybe the leader kicked a little bit early and you’re chasing after him.

These are all things that you don’t really get to experience on the treadmill, so getting outdoors, get into it, doing it. That’s what you got to do, but for all its costs the treadmill is a great substitute for running.

We’re lucky to have a sport where we can take it both indoors and outdoors and we don’t even have to leave the insides of the comforts of our homes to do so.

A lot of sports can’t do that, so we should be grateful that we have this opportunity and take advantage of it if we can.

Get outside if you can, practice what you’re trying to do, and practice the goals of what you’re looking to reach.

Tom, I hope this answers your question for you today and just want to say thank you very much for submitting this question as it’s very relevant for a lot of us right now because we’re stuck indoors with a foot of snow under us.

Thank you for turning in today. For those of you listening that want to have your question answered by one of the runners connect coaches, head over to runnersconnect.net/daily and click the record button to sing your question over. We look forward to hearing from you soon. Enjoy the rest of your day.