oh so you love the treadmill too?

First of all happy #nationaldonutday! We don't celebrate every holiday, I mean come on, tomorrow is "National Gardening Exercise Day"? But, today we had to indulge, because we LOVE donuts. 


Here is Luke at Queen's Donuts, picking out his favorite (always vanilla topping with sprinkle)! 

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If you are like me you loathe the idea of a treadmill. 

I know you are all thinking, "She lives in Arizona, come on, why is she even on a treadmill!" Most of you are planting flowers, basking in the spring sun, and overall breathing a huge sigh of relief that the "white stuff" is gone for a few months. While us Arizonians, are preparing for hibernation. No, seriously have you ever tried to run in 110 degree dry heat? The summer is our treadmill season, unless you enjoy waking up at 4AM and going for a jog, which I do not. 



Way back (about a year and a half ago) when I started my fitness journey, I spent a lot of time on the treadmill. It was my safe place, the gym I went to was not too busy and my son was happily playing in the child watch. I searched Pinterest and found quite a few different workouts that started out incredibly hard, but after months of usage, they became quite monotonous. I signed up for my first big race, Ragnar - Del Sol, and I needed to work on inclines, endurance and speed. I started to fine tune some of the workouts and eventually came up with a few really effective treadmill series. 


Ragnar - Del Sol, 2015


I want to share these with you, but keep in mind that I am not a certified trainer or fitness professional (yet, eeeek). These work for me and I have found that when something works for me I may be able to share and reach just one person who ends up loving it as much as me.  

I typically run three times a week, two of these times will be on a treadmill doing speed or incline intervals, with the third being my long outdoor run. The following workout is one that I do quite often. What I have listed, are my speeds and my inclines. This by no means has to be what you run, change it up, make it fit your running (or walking) style. For a lot of you, 7.5 may be your comfortable pace, more power to you, but it is my sprinting pace for now. The idea is to be sweating and out of breathe after the "up" minutes. 






The entire workout is roughly 2.4 miles of awesome! It is one of my shorter workouts, but guaranteed to make you sweat and feel it the next day!




 On a final note, I want to let you know that this workout would have killed me a year and a half ago! You must start somewhere, and you must stick with goals to see improvement. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would label myself a runner, it has become a passion and something that I need in my daily life. 


Happy running,

Meredith  




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