Top 10 Reasons Why I Hate Marathon Training On a Treadmill

Sometimes, training on a treadmill is required. The day is just too hot or humid during the day or night, or you’re traveling. Perhaps you’re training for a summer marathon in the winter so you want to simulate the same atmosphere. It happens. I’ve only done it about 30-40 times but these are my top reasons why I hate running on a treadmill:

1. Time limits on a treadmill. Why put a time limit? If they get too tired, they fall off. Problem solved. Most places have a time limit between an hour and two hours. Very annoying when you have to do a long run on it.
2. You’re essentially running in place, so you sweat twice as much. Some treadmills have tiny fans that help but not by much. Some gyms have big fans meant to circulate the air but you can sometimes turn it so that you can get a sustained 30mph gusts to keep you cool.
3. Because of #2, you like to run without a shirt on. However, most gyms don’t allow that because it makes everyone else feel bad about their body (or better, whichever camp you’re in)
4. Unless you want to stop every so often for water breaks, bring a water bottle. When I run outside, I know where the water fountains are so I stop quickly for water and keep going. On a treadmill, you would need to pause it, run over to get water then get back on, assuming the treadmill is still on. If not, then you’ll have to remember how much distance you ran.
5. There’s really nothing to look at and if there is a TV, often its not in your preferred viewing area so you’re straining your neck to watch.
6. It takes too much time to go to the gym, get ready, run on a treadmill, and clean up the sweat spray your body made. Much easier to just set out of your house and run.
7. Not all treadmills are accurate in their speed and distance. This unknown factor bothers me as I haven’t thought of an easy way to accurately measure it.
8. You can’t run away from your own farts. Trust me I’ve tried. Fans don’t help with this regard either.
9. Some treadmills in China are km only. Its tough to figure out what 14 miles is in KM after running for two hours.
10. Sometimes duration on a treadmill is limited during peak times at the gym so you can’t run whenever you want for as long as you want. You would need to plan around these limitations at your local gym so you can have a long run. This really only applies for runs longer than 30 minutes. For me, almost all my training runs are above 30 minutes and it’s hard to cram in a long 2-3 hour run after work.