treadmill

On the road in Scottsdale, Arizona, I'm doomed to running on a treadmill.

As usual, the hotel "fitness center" is tucked away in a corner where no "normal" guests aren't going to be embarrassed by sweaty people working out. I have the choice of two aging Precors and pick the one without the floppy belt. I'm very proud of the fact that I managed to keep amused on it for a solid hour, and that I didn't make myself fall off by looking in the mirrors too much.

Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic.

But that's all I've been able to manage for the last 4 days.

Reason/excuse: I spent three days in a classroom in Salt Lake City, where I've been on a training course for a new meridian stress assessment device that I'm testing out as part of my day job. (www.biomeridian.com for those interested in complementary and alternative medicine.)

Sitting down for hours at a time does strange things to my body. As does air travel. And staying in a hotel. And eating out all the time and at odd times. Heard enough excuses yet?

Took myself off to my mate Dwight Cornwell to get tested on his spirometer, a lung function testing gadget that gives you a computer read-out of the state of your lungs.

Dwight and Kari's home is like a 24/7 laboratory. There's training and/or testing equipment in every room, it seems; these guys inspire me - they are always training or doing something therapeutic to themselves. Dwight is an accomplished Masters runner and American record-holder and runs Gap Coaching. He's really good at using a huge variety of functional tests to help get you back on the road. Since he recently got himself an Erchonia laser system, he's moved up to an even higher level.

Competition

Men thrive on it. We really do. I was on the treadmill. I was going at a good 8 min/mile and a guy decided to get on the treadmill next to me. He put his treadmill on the same settings as me. 7.5 miles per hour and 1.0 incline.

I had planned on doing those settings for about a mile and then relaxing for about 2 miles at a slower pace. Then it hit me.

Competition. WE thrive on it.

So we finished the first mile and we kept going. I bumped it up to 7.8 miles per hour which is 7:41 per mile. He didn't follow me. And on we went. I had the upper hand.

Competition. WE THRIVE on it.

Last night I dreamt I was out in front of the Bolder Boulder 10k. Haile Gebreselassie was 100m behind me and I could hear him puffing and blowing. No worries: I was breathing through my nose, running easy with a cadence of something like 110 -- it was effortless, and I just picked up the pace until he dropped even farther behind me.

It was the sort of dream it's almost a shame to wake up from :) It was stimulated by my first session on the University of Colorado's G-Trainer -- the treadmill that uses air pressure to lift your bodyweight off your legs. You can vary the "lift". Researcher Alena Grabowski put me through six 7-minute sessions and one of them was just like the dream. I was reduced to 25% bodyweight while the treadmill was cranked up -- it was like running superfast, on the edge of out-of-controlness, down a long trail. Because of the "skirt" that zips you into the pressurised pod, you are pretty much locked in place, so you don't have to worry about maintaining balance, just focus on doing the work... and at this, what felt like near-zero gravity, my legs were going at the fastest cadence they have ever managed.

Fancy running with 25% less bodyweight? How about 50%, or 75%???

It's gotta be like flying, right?

Well, I'll let you know next week, as I've signed up for a University of Colorado study that is testing the new generation treadmill called the G-trainer.

On this device you run on a treadmill, but sealed from the waist down in a kind of air-tight pod. The G-Trainer changes the air pressure inside the skirt so you effectively run with almost zero impact -- or, in effect, with less bodyweight. It's a bit like the effect you get running in a pool.

Quite apart from its obvious benefits if you are rehabbing from injury, a number of elites such as Adam and Kara Goucher are using it to be able to add milea and or quality work without the risk of injury from increased impact. The G-Trainer website includes this quote from Alberto Salazar (Director of the Nike Oregon Project and former marathon world record holder): "By reducing my athletes’ effective body weight using the G-Trainer, they have increased their training volume by up to 25%, without increased risk of injury. This has enabled our runners to compete at their highest level ever."

Salt Lake City – Hotel Monaco – Treadmill – 3.33 – 0:40.  The treadmill was occupied by some lunatic who was doing crunches in between his 7 minute miles so I had to wait 7 minutes for him to finish up.  I did 5 minutes on some weird elliptical without arms and then a solid but slow 40 minutes.  I felt good – I’ve moved my base treadmill run up to 45 minutes (I counted my 5 minutes on the weirdmachine) from 30 minutes.  I still feel seriously heavy (the enemy was > 220 on Monday AM, but I attribute that to the 10 tons of salt in the In

Eldorado Springs: Noon – walk to Eldo Reservoir with Amy (3.5m / 1:03); 4pm – treadmill – 2.48 – 30:00.  I know that when I feel like “running” twice in one day (even if one of them is a walk) that I’m starting to get back in the groove.  It is a beautiful day in Eldo – our walk was perfect.  I watched another version of Lost in the afternoon on the treadmill.  My shoes were muddy (dried by 4pm) so there are piles of dirt in the treadmill room to be cleaned up by some hapless (not me) soul.