Project Half Marathon: my new nemesis – the treadmill

Diet, low carb, proteins, fibre, food compositions – these were the topics was I meant to do a deep dive into over the last four weeks. In fact, it’s in black and white at the end of my last diary entry on Project Half Marathon:

Well, I quite literally bit more off than I could chew. The trouble is I’ve been chewing on the wrong stuff. At least as an aspiring runner. A week in Ticino, a bank holiday in the Grisons mountains and a another one in northern Italy and Lucerne was all it took. Think hotel restaurants, Italian eateries and room service à gogo. I can tell you one thing, it was delicious. My inner glutton had the best time so far this year. Of course, my inner runner, who’s very sensible, was protesting. But in vain.

Unexpected progress leap

I’m not saying all I’ve been doing for the last four weeks is lazing about. It was raining half the time in Ticino (and the other half wasn’t exactly sunny either), but as the hotel had a gym with a treadmill, I gave that a go. A downpour outdoors and me indoors patting myself on the back because I’m on the treadmill.

Let’s start nice and easy, I thought to myself and set the treadmill to 8.5 kilometres per hour. That’s about the speed I run at home in Winterthur. Incredibly, what I’d described as painfully slow last time, felt like a brisk walk on the treadmill. So what does clever me do? That’s right. Increase the speed. How about 10 kilometres? No probs! One hour at a nice steady pace, no speed fluctuations, no inclines, no headwinds. Easy. «Wow, what progress,» I thought to myself. But, my oh my, how naive I was.

Never trust a treadmill

So for my next session, I went right in at this speed. And what does a euphoric novice runner do? Decides to up the speed 30 minutes into starting. «I can do more than that!» I said to myself and cranked it up to 13 km/h. Doesn’t look like much at first glance, but I’d been running one kilometre in 7:15 minutes up until then. That means at 10 km/h, I was doing one in just 6 minutes and at 13 km/h at just 4:37 minutes.

And because I still felt relatively good after 30 minutes at 13 km/h, the dopamine in my brain laughed hysterically and said: «Come on, who cares. Might as well do 15!» No sooner thought than done. So I was doing 15 km/h during the last 15 minutes. That translates to 4:00 minutes per kilometre. Sure, I was exhausted after the session. And I mean exhausted. But it also felt really good standing on the balcony after the workout, feeling the cool air in my face and on my overheated legs.

Reality hit with brute force like Thor’s hammer the next time I was running outdoors. With my treadmill speed fresh in my mind, I set off running. Brisk, dynamic, just as it had felt on the mill at around speed 13. After five minutes, I take a look at my watch: 8.5 km/h. Right, time to step it up a notch. Accelerating to a 10, I regularly check my pace. Just ten minutes in, my heart rate’s over 175. After a further three minutes, it’s over 180 and my battery’s empty. Looks like the streets shut me up.

Lesson learned? Never trust a treadmill!

Let’s do diet next month, OK?

So all in all, I’ve been a bit of a big mouth. That’s where all those culinary delights went. Oh, and then there was the announcement I made that I’d be taking a closer look at my diet. For the most part, though, that’s all it’s been. Me and my big mouth. I’ll be looking into food (questions) next time. Promise.

Although, things haven’t been a complete catastrophe. Because despite all the risotto, pasta, brasato, burrata and tiramisu, I did manage not to put weight on.

Project Half Marathon in all its glory is available here: