Terrible Treadmill Challenge

Running on a treadmill is not usually considered a trail run. And I’m not doing that here, but this was a fun and challenging adventure, so I thought it should be included here with our other adventures.

A running club that I am a part of does some pretty crazy things, and interesting challenges. One of these was the 24 hour treadmill challenge. The gist of the challenge was to see who in the club could get the most miles pounded out on a public or private treadmill in a 24 hour period. With some extra perks for the individual that got the most consecutive miles (miles run without stopping or no more than restroom/drink breaks).

As I am sure you are thinking, that was a terrible idea, but it was also an amazing experience.

I have not been much of a treadmill runner, all my running has been outdoors except for a couple of brief runs on treadmills in hotel fitness centers. But when this challenge was scheduled I decided I wanted to take part in it, and found one I could pickup fairly cheaply, used. After picking up the treadmill, I parked it in our garage and installed an old flat screen monitor in front of the treadmill so I could watch something interesting and distract from the numbness that certainly would ensue.

With everything in place and the scheduled day of the challenge close at hand, I put in my first 4 mile test run on the treadmill (my most miles on a treadmill to date) and learned a few things.

• I sweat a LOT more indoors than with a nice breeze.
• Don’t Forget to wear my sweatband, or I will be constantly wiping sweat from my eyes.
• Make sure to have a towel handy, to wipe down my face and neck when the sweat gets to be too much.
•  With all this sweat it is a good thing that I am doing this during the winter rather than Southern Utah summer.
• It might be a good idea to have a chair available to rest on in between stretches.
• Giving the treadmill some extra lubricant during the event would be a good idea.

With those notes in hand I made my final adjustments, tuned up the treadmill, and prepared mentally by getting lots of trail miles in the days leading up it.

The event started at 8PM on Friday Feb 8th and ended at 8PM the next day. I was not at home when the appointed hour arrived, but arrived home a couple hours after 8. After which I got on the treadmill, put on The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey and started the monotony… I started off at a leisurely pace, not wanting to go out too aggressively, I still had about 24hours to go.

Although the movie kept me distracted a bit it was obvious that this challenge was unlike anything I had attempted before. I soon was yearning for the beautiful vistas or changing surroundings and varied running surfaces that my body was used to. My feet were almost numb with the repeated perfectly flat surface. I was frequently having to grab my towel and wipe the sweat away from my face and neck. I also found it difficult to try and keep myself centered on the treadmill band, I kept feeling like I was drifting to one side or the other. And I had a hard time keeping a consistent pace so I was constantly fiddling with my speed, not the best performance on the treadmill.

Finally at about 12:30AM I ticked over 14 miles, had finished the first Hobbit movie, and decided that to keep going the next day I should probably call it a night and get a bit of sleep. After all 14 miles was a decent chunk of miles, and the others participating in the challenge wouldn’t get to crazy would they?

The next morning I awoke to see that some of the other club members had posted A LOT more miles than I had put in, one, Brett, had completed a non-stop 50+k (32 Miles) in a public facility, another , Scott, seeing that the 32 miles Brett posted completed 33 miles in a public facility, and Jeff pushed all the way to a 40 miles non-stop on his treadmill at home. I was blown away, these guys had certainly set the bar high, I had not even done half the miles that they had put in. And I knew, based on my performance the night before, that I wasn’t about to get a full stretch of 30+ non-stop miles in. As well I was in the middle of my non stop 5k streak, which would require me to get out on the trail to keep that going, so I was going to need to break it up a bit.

So I got to it, putting on the next Hobbit movie (The Desolation of Smaug), I got going again, and experienced a lot of what I had the night before, but even more sweat, since things were warming up a bit outside. I finished off 6 more miles to bring me to an even 20 miles for the event. Then I took a break before heading out to get my trail run in during the warmth of that February day.

After finishing a 6 mile trail run and taking care of a couple items around the house for my wife and kiddos I got back on the mill and turned the second half of the movie so I could finish it up. I was able to get 8 more miles in before the movie ended, which left me with an even average of 14 miles per movie.

I took a bit of a break, but at 28 miles I was still several miles behind those that had posted their big miles already. So I got back in and aimed for the 34+ mile mark to hopefully get me in second place… I got The Battle of Five Armies playing and kept moving forward, but it was obvious that I should have had more practice runs, fueled up better throughout the event, and maybe should have pounded out some more miles before going to bed the night before.

I got about half way through the final Hobbit movie and had knocked out 7 miles, but that was basically the end of the road for me. 35 miles was by far the furthest I had ever ran on a treadmill but would it be enough to secure 2nd place?

At the end of the event I found I was not in the 2nd place spot, although I had enough miles to be in that spot previously Scott had busted out another 4 miles during the day for a total of 37, And Jeff had gotten another 10 for a total of 50 miles on the treadmill. So that put me in a solid 3rd place.

So it was an interesting if not totally boring event 😉 and although that was a lot of time on the treadmill, I think I will be back from time to time. The treadmill has it’s place, but I wouldn’t recommend it for running an ultra marathon, unless you are a type of crazy like me!