The Best Way to Read: On a Treadmill
I read with a pencil in one hand and a book in the other.
Let’s summarize key points from my first three posts on Amby Burfoot’s Run Forever: Your Complete Guide to Healthy Lifetime Running.
“Running is the simplest of sports. It deserves a simple book.”1
“All successful beginning running programs follow a run-walk routine.”
“Olympic marathon champions do 80 percent of their training at a slow, comfortable pace. As a beginner you should do 100 percent slow. This point is so important that you'll find me repeating it often.”
In choosing running shoes, Burfoot encourages us to opt for the most comfortable pair we can find and to ignore the salesperson’s tech jargon. I take this advice and choose running shoes based on comfort and looks alone.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share my remaining highlights from Run Forever, mixed with my commentary and personal workouts. Here’s a rough list of seven run/fitness posts coming your way:
Trail Runs and Hill Repeats
Intervals: At the Track, From Your Garage, On A Grassy Field
The Fartlek Run: Especially Good With Kids
Lose 10 Pounds
The Lifetime Runner's Credo
Run-walk for Speed
Strength Training, Swimming, Biking, Hiking, and Paddling
And now onto treadmills.
Burfoot writes
I don't know any runners today who won't admit to the multiple advantages of occasional treadmill running. Especially at five a.m. in a blizzard. Or in a midsummer heat wave.
Treadmills are especially welcoming for beginning runners. You can set a comfortable speed, avoid all hills, and have no worries about extreme weather. Best of all, treadmills are soft. They "give" a little when we run on them, unlike asphalt, concrete, and other hard surfaces.
This extra cushioning might prevent injuries and/or help you during a comeback from injury.
I keep a treadmill right in the middle of my garage, about 10 feet back from an aging, but still lovely, plasma TV. The TV is mounted on the wall and has its own Apple TV. The floor is covered in Rogue, 3/4” thick, black-rubber floor mats.
In a pinch, this is my escape room. On evenings when I haven’t gotten enough exercise during the day, I come here. Even a 15-minute inclined walk helps me sleep better.
Normally, I start this workout on the stationary bike. I adjust the seat height (since my wife uses the bike too) and then turn on the TV.
Choosing something good to watch is critical. An engaging flick, keeps me exercising longer. Once streaming, I warm-up for 10 minutes on the bike. Then, I move onto other exercises—the treadmill being one of a few different options. I almost never run fast when watching TV on my treadmill, but I do like to incline it up to 15 degrees and hike uphill.
I’ll share more about my garage workouts in a future post; I have some important points to make about this routine, but those are better described in “Intervals: At the Track, From Your Garage, On A Grassy Field.” Coming soon.
The other way I use my home treadmill is to run one mile pretty fast, noting how long it takes me to get to the one-mile mark. This quick workout can give me a significant lift when I need some exercise.
My home treadmill is basically an emergency exercise tool I go to when I haven’t gotten enough exercise for the day. I use treadmills at the gym very differently.
Walk and Read a Book
My most common form of exercise is simply to read a book while walking on a treadmill at my local gym.2 The gym community provides motivation to walk and read longer than I would read or exercise at home by myself. I can walk and read on a treadmill for hours. This allows me to get a lot of reading done. Somedays I walk 7-8 miles on a treadmill.
On a treadmill, I read with with a pencil in one hand and a book in the other. I highlight important passages and scribble thoughts in the margins. When time comes to write, I go back through my highlights, decide what to share, and then cut and paste into Substack as needed.
The iPhone makes sharing excerpts from books exceptionally easy. Snap a photo; highlight the text in the photo; then copy and paste right into Substack. For those under fifty, you probably already know this? If you have any questions on how to do this, send me a message or ask in the comments. We want everyone reading and discussing books.
Trim to Truth is about books, notes and dialogue (even if the dialogue is just a few of us).
Next time, I’ll talk about trail runs and hill repeats.
We need more simple books like this one.
Reading on a stepper machine is easier than reading on a treadmill, but stepper machines are expensive. Here, I’m talking about a real stepper machine in which the stairs rotate around in a loop, like an escalator, constantly moving down under your feet. You walk up the stairs, staying in the same place. Because the stepper machine moves slower than a treadmill, the book doesn’t bounce as much. Some people bring a plastic book holder with them to the gym and mount it on the control panel of the stepper machine. This doesn’t work for me since I’m tall. I just hold the book with my hands.