I run every day but dread the treadmill — here’s how I make indoor running more fun

I’ve been a keen runner for many years, and there’s really very little that I don’t love about the sport. I run pretty much every day, and it’s always a highlight of my day, unless I have to do my run indoors.

Running on a treadmill removes a lot of what I love about running with regards to getting outside, clearing my head and seeing a bit of the world around me. It’s monotonous and can really drag on if you don’t have some good strategies in place to liven up your indoor runs.

For me, listening to music or podcasts doesn’t do enough to reduce the boredom of indoor sessions. If you have one of the best treadmills with a screen and instructor-led classes to follow, then that’s a good option, but I’ve picked several ways to make running on any treadmill more fun.

If you dread the treadmill but have to use it regularly for whatever reason, give one of these five methods a try to make your indoor runs more fun.

Reserve a TV show for the treadmill

This is my top method to make the treadmill a place I look forward to spending time on. If you’re hooked on a TV show, then make the only place you can watch it be on the treadmill.

I leaned into this method when The Last Dance came out on Netflix, and my Monday training became a highlight of my week as new episodes of the series came out to watch while I worked out.

This takes some discipline, along with a tablet or some other screen that you can position so you can see it while running, but if you can stick to it, this method will quickly change your whole view of indoor training.

Zwift running

If you can’t run outdoors in real life, then do it virtually. Zwift is a go-to app for cyclists, who do a lot more indoor training than runners in general, and it contains a variety of virtual worlds your avatar can ride or run around.

Zwift is quite expensive for cycling, but it is currently completely free for runners, though you do need some compatible kit to set it up. Your avatar will run at the speed you’re running on the treadmill, so you need to send that information to the app somehow.

Many Garmin watches now have a virtual run mode that sends this info to the app, but it’s not that accurate in my experience. Ideally, your treadmill will communicate directly to the app, which many modern machines do, or you can get a footpod to send this info — the Zwift RunPod is a cheap and easy option to set up.

Cover up the time

Everyone knows time slows down when you run on a treadmill, and the big digits right in front of you on the console really magnify that. Cover those up so you’re not tempted to check in on your time constantly, because it’s seldom good news.

Break up the run with intervals

Doing treadmill workouts certainly makes your run less boring, but even if you’re not really pushing yourself with a tough interval session, it’s worth breaking up the time somehow to make it feel like it’s passing more quickly.

If you’re doing an easy run, then pick a couple of relaxed paces you can swap between every few minutes as a next ‘checkpoint’ to reach, or increase the pace very slightly every mile you run to get a satisfying pace graph at the end of it.

Mix up the incline

The lack of variation in treadmill running not only makes it boring, but is also unrealistic compared to outdoor runs, when you’re almost always running on routes with little ups and downs and uneven surfaces.

This not only makes them more interesting but also enlists slightly different muscles, and so changing up the incline on your indoor runs is worth doing to mirror that. It doesn’t need to be a huge hill climb, but adding incline here and there breaks up the time and gives you something different to focus on for a spell.

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