You see, at the leisure centre the Technogym treadmills allow you to do a number of things:
- free running, where you control the speed, gradient and time
- use a pre-programmed work out
- re-run something which the treadmill has picked up from your Strava feed. This is particularly neat as it shows the map and where you are. The treadmill then adjusts the speed to match the real life run. At first it seemed a bit surreal. It doesn't do anything to the gradient, which is just as well as I can't imagine running down hill on a treadmill!
- favourite treadmill runs can also be saved and re-run again and again
There are many advantages to treadmill running and I have blogged about this before.
However, there is one main disadvantage as I discovered last week.....
There I was, happily running a favourite run lasting only 15 minutes. It is set to have a warm-up of 5 minutes at 6.5mph, then the speed gradually increases to reach a very brisk pace just before the end and the cool down period. One of the increases in speed is a bit drastic. This is fine providing you are looking at the screen and see it change. I happened to be "somewhere else" in my thoughts when the speed suddenly increased and I almost went flying off the treadmill - it was only the hand rails at the side which saved me!
This was not a cool thing to do. My sudden movement as I desperately grabbed the side rail caught the eye of other gym users. Some looked concerned: is he alright, did he trip or something? Is he having a heart attack? Was he going too fast and couldn't handle it? Is he a complete idiot? Others must have thought I was a newbie and not up to running on a treadmill. Others just rolled their eyes.
So there you go. Treadmill running does have it's real advantages but also some perils can lurk there.
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