Bottom Of The Barrel

Outside vs treadmill

Ok fellow harpoonfest participants, so you've been running on the treadmill faithfully for the past month but are finding outdoor running much more difficult. Inside your covering 3 miles for over 30 minutes but when you get outside your out of breath after 5 minutes not even getting past the first mile. So what's the problem?

In a word, pacing. On the treadmill, you find a comfortable pace and the machine regulates your running however when you hit the street, it's all up to you to keep the correct speed. The first time I "took it to the streets", I got about 50 yards before I had to stop completely out of breath. It happens to ever first time runner. So what can you do about?

Well for me the answer is in the music. If your like me, you love to run with your MP3 player listening to your favorite songs [recently for me that has been the Goo Goo Dolls]. I recommend using the beat of the song to run to which will control your pace. So how do you go about finding the right music?

Next time your on the treadmill running at your comfortable speed sample a bunch of songs until you find one where the beat matches your steps. I find rock songs to be the best for this process because they typically follow a 4/4 beat pattern, which means the beat of the song is Snare, Base, Snare, Base [with the high hat keeping time at two to four beats between Snare hits]. You will find this in many many songs and I personally like to run where my right foot is hitting the ground on every snare and bass beat. Once you have found the "pace" song, then you can use a tool to measure the Beats Per Minute, I recommend the ALL8 Beat Counter. Once you have this value, which for me was 40 when I started, you can BPM other songs and find more with the same tempo.

After you have collected enough to carry you from start to finish you are ready to make your play list and get out there an run a few miles. You never know, your new tempo based play list might just carry you an extra mile on the next run!

posted by TheWino @ 3:19 PM