Workout Wednesday: Progressive Interval Treadmill Workout

I will be the first person on this planet to tell you that treadmill workouts are boring. The WORST is when you are on a ‘mill that faces a wall or *shudder* a mirror. Staring at yourself while you run is just wrong. Luckily, most of the treadmills at my gym face the windows and even though the view isn’t very exciting, I can easily imagine being outside and of course, do some people watching. I think this has helped me get over my disdain for running indoors.

Still, running more than 3-4 miles on a treadmill can be challenging for me. I think this partially because it’s too damn easy for me to hop off and that it’s just not as stimulating. One way to overcome this boredom is to switch it up and MAKE it interesting. I find that if I focus on intervals it give me small goals to push myself — and this workout does just that.

A progressive internal run is pretty much what it sounds like. You start out slower and over time build speed/incline. In this case, instead of starting super slow and building up, you can start at a moderate speed, pick up the pace, and then slow it down for a bit. I find the slower middle part both torturous AND helpful. Sometimes it’s hard to slow down when you are going fast – but the little break in the middle really helps you kick it up big time in the end.

Here’s a playlist to go with the workout. Really, you could use this playlist for any run, but I tried to match it up with the speed.

Random… as always.

And for the record, I have done this workout (it just so happens that a progressive interval workout is part of the Best Body Bootcamp plan!) and it seriously KICKED MY ASS, but it also felt like it just flew by — and those are the best kinds of runs! I started my run at a 7.4 and finished at an 8.4 Of course, that’s me. YOU do what makes you feel uncomfortably comfortable. I mean you have to suck it up a little and suffer, right?

So, what’s YOUR favorite kind of interval workout????