Treadmill vs Outdoors

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sherisse5
sherisse5 Posts: 14 Member
I can run for 25-30 consecutive minutes on the treadmill, and with a little bit of walking before and after I make it to the 5k mark. I recently took my show on the road though and found that I am struggling to run for 2-3 minutes without stopping. I'm going to start over again at the beginning on week 1 day 1 and do it outdoors. But what gives? Why am I finding it so much more difficult outside?

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  • sarahthes
    sarahthes Posts: 3,252 Member
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    "To answer your questions, treadmill running and road running are not quite the same. Running on the treadmill is easier than running outdoors, for a variety of reasons. One reason is that the treadmill belt assists leg turnover, making it easier to run faster. So most runners find that their pace on the treadmill doesn’t correlate to their road pace. Also, some of the soft tissue conditioning or “hardening” that occurs with road running does not occur with treadmill running because the plate or base on the treadmill "gives" more than road surfaces. And, obviously there are no weather conditions to deal with when running indoors."

    http:/www.runnersworld.com/for-beginners-only/how-effective-is-treadmill-running-compared-to-running-outside
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    sherisse5 wrote: »
    I can run for 25-30 consecutive minutes on the treadmill, and with a little bit of walking before and after I make it to the 5k mark. I recently took my show on the road though and found that I am struggling to run for 2-3 minutes without stopping. I'm going to start over again at the beginning on week 1 day 1 and do it outdoors. But what gives? Why am I finding it so much more difficult outside?

    Running outside is harder, but you also may be going out too fast.