Treadmill Tips with IRONMAN World Champion Anne Haug

A lot of people cannot stand the treadmill. Many athletes would go so far as to say they hate it. Unfortunately for them, sometimes the treadmill is the only option for a run. This is especially likely in the winter, when roads are too snowy or icy to get a run in.

Retired pro triathlete and 2019 IRONMAN world champion Anne Haug often hits the treadmill, and it is rarely out of necessity—she simply loves it. Slowtwitch got the chance to speak with Haug (not long after she had finished a treadmill session, actually) to find out what she likes about treadmill running, her favourite training sessions on the machine and any tips she has for her fellow triathletes and runners whenever they decide to try out an indoor run workout.

Why the Treadmill?

While Haug has enjoyed treadmill running for many years, she says it really became a key part of her training as she aged in the sport.

“As soon as you get older, if the training load is high, I definitely don’t want to run on the track because of the curves and the surface of the track,” she says. “So, especially when it’s crunch time, you know, and it’s close to races and the training volume picks up and the intensity picks up, I want to do it as joint-friendly as possible.”

She adds that the training quality you’ll get is of course dependent on the treadmill, but “if you have a good one,” you will be able to hit all of the paces you want as accurately as you would on the track or road. Plus, “it’s just linear movements,” she says, so the risk of injury is lessened.

Haug says injury prevention isn’t the only reason she prefers the treadmill for her hard sessions.

“It’s really nice because I don’t have to think about the speed,” she says. “I put the speed in and I just run. I always loved it because I know exactly what pace I’m running.”

The alternative, she notes, is running outside and playing the “mental game” of trying to hit the right pace for a specific workout.

“Personally, I find it harder to run outside because it’s easy to be unsure of your pace,” she says. “You always have to think, ‘Oh, which speed is that? Am I on the right speed?’ You don’t have that on the treadmill.”

Haug says she did all of her “hard stuff” on the treadmill for many years in her career, which meant she was on the machine at least two to three times every week.

Another reason she likes the treadmill, she says, is its convenience when travelling. As a pro triathlete, Haug was in different cities around the world multiple times every year. If she was unfamiliar with a location, she would, of course, have no idea where to run.

“I hate it if I’m in a different place and don’t know where to go,” she says. “Whenever I was away for a race, I would always go on a treadmill so I wouldn’t have to stop everywhere or try to figure out where I was going.”

Haug can give many more reasons as to why she loves treadmill running, but a final one is due to its practicality. She recalls workouts that involved running up long hills for six to eight minutes with just one minute of recovery in between each repeat.

“Try finding a hill that is that long that you can get down in one minute [of easy running],” she says. “It’s just not practical. The treadmill is just so great for every kind of training.”

Get Outside

While Haug cannot say enough good things about the treadmill, she does note that it is still very important to get outside for some runs, too. It’s sort of like using bands for swim training, or even more similar to riding the indoor trainer for your bike workouts. You can certainly get stronger with bands and trainer rides, but if you only use these training methods, you will show up to your races without a feel for the water and with low bike-handling skills.

“You need to feel the ground,” Haug says. “It’s always good to run on undulating terrain.”

Unless she was in a foreign, unknown city before a competition, Haug says she would usually do her easy and long runs outside. In addition to those trots, she says she would often take her last one or two “key brick sessions” outdoors and into the elements before races.

“Treadmill runs can transfer to outside running, but it’s still a bit different,” she says. “You need to get used to that and especially your proprioception so that you don’t twist your ankle or anything.”

Haug’s Treadmill Tips

Haug’s main tip for treadmill running is to always increase the incline to one percent, whether you’re doing an easy jog or a hard workout.

“That simulates the normal wind you would have when you run outside,” she says. “It’s more realistic. If you have it at zero percent then it’s a bit like cheating.”

With a lower limit of incline established, Haug says she never goes higher than six percent on the treadmill, even for her hardest hill workouts.

Lastly, she has a tip for distracting yourself on your treadmill runs. She may love the work, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard or painful, so she uses music to take her mind off of the task at hand. That might not seem like much of a tip, but her suggestion comes in the playlist selection.

“I have this funny thing I do,” she says. “I always estimate how many songs my session will last.”

She says that, on average, songs in her music library are three minutes and 45 seconds long. Using that information, she calculates how many songs it will take to finish her harder treadmill sessions. This gives her something to focus on outside of the physical work while also serving as a sort of countdown with each passing song. She knows she is getting close to the end of a workout when the playlist is coming to a close, which she says helps her mentally push through each session.

Haug’s Go-To Workouts

A “key session” Haug loved to use as a test of fitness before races was 15, or sometimes 18, repeats of 1,000 metres on the treadmill. These were broken into groups of three, descending in pace from fast to faster to fastest.

“In my good times, I would run 3:30 per kilometre, then 3:20, then 3:10,” she says. “I would do five or six rounds of that, so 15 or 18 in total. That was always on of my favourite ones.”

Another go-to treadmill workout that Haug recommends is 200 metres “really, really hard” followed by 800 metres at race pace.

As Haug said earlier, the treadmill is the perfect tool for these types of workouts. Unlike doing them on the road or track, there will be no guesswork involved when it comes to pacing — no checking your watch to make sure you’re hitting 3:30 pace (or whatever pace you choose fort that 15 x 1,000 m workout) when needed. Instead, simply set your speed on the treadmill and try to hold on.

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