20 Minute Treadmill Workouts

Pssst: Have you heard of Hello Fresh? It's a grocery delivery service. Anyway, this week they have come out with new vegetarian grocery boxes. You should check 'em out. I will be reviewing the service soon, soon, soon!

Treadmill time: I'm struggling to keep up with fitness at the moment. I'm not training for anything, and as the weather has gotten colder, I've become especially good at coming up with excuses to skip. We just had our treadmill serviced a couple weeks ago, and I've been trying to promise myself at least five runs a week.

Even if those runs are only 2 miles. So far, so good.

It's easy for me to get caught in a doomed mindset of "I USED to run X number of miles when I was marathon training" or "Five miles should be EASY for me." It's all very negative and eventually leads to my mental downfall.

So, I've come up with some short, sweet workouts I can do on those days my mind gets the best of me. Each of these sessions can be completed in either 2 miles or 20 minutes. What I've found is that I can often jog a cool-down mile to make it three total. Sometimes more.

If not? No big deal. At least I've done something instead of nothing. Kept the momentum going. The pacing is just what I do. Simply adjust according to your normal paces, whether faster or slower. For reference, my normal jogging pace on the treadmill is 7mph.


I hope you enjoy these short, sweet runs. I always tend to take the winter season relatively easy. There aren't many races on the agenda, so it's a good time to let the damage of harder training heal.

I don't worry so much about my weekly mileage either. My totals range from 10 miles to 30. It's crazy. Instead, it's all about keeping my legs moving and complimenting with cross-training like yoga.

I don't love running on the treadmill, but I get a different quality out of them. Most of my outdoor mileage is run at an easy pace on mostly flat surfaces. On the treadmill, unless I'm challenging myself, I'm bored.

How about you? Can you run most every day indoors -- or do you need to play games to pass the time?

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