The Pandora Treadmill Game

You all should know me well enough to understand how I feel about the treadmill. I have never really HATED it, but I have always strongly disliked it. I prefer running outside and enjoying my surroundings rather than running for miles without going anywhere. However, there are times when a dreadmill is your only option.

This past month, our area has been hit with unique weather conditions. On most nights, our temperatures have dropped into the single digits. On occasion, they will even dip into the negatives. For my own safety, I have avoided running in such cold weather. Even in 20 degrees, I tend to lose all the feeling in my fingers even with appropriate gloves on. Also, having 2 injuries back to back, I thought sticking to a treadmill and hoping off at the first sign of pain was a better idea than being stranded on the C&O Canal with a messed up foot. So, the treadmill it has been for the past month.

Now, my feelings of the treadmill have turned from disliking it, to loathing it. No matter what I do, I cannot enjoy my workouts. I have tried watching movies, blasting music, or cutting the workout into 2 sessions. I have even made Peter keep me company to help distract me from going crazy. Nothing has really helped. Until today.

I decided to cover the screen that shows the time and mileage just so I could focus primarily on how I felt while running. Since I had nothing to track how long I had gone, I used each Pandora song that played as an indicator of where I was in my workout.


That is when I decided to make a game out of it.

Here are the rules...
If you are using an iPod or MP3, make sure you set it to shuffle

• Song #1: This is your warm up. Start at a slow pace. My warm up pace was 5.7 mph.
• On song #2, begin to increase your pace, reaching your typical "low" pace (the pace you don't want to fall under during your workout) by the song's end. Mine is 6.0 mph.
• By song #3, you should be warmed up and ready to go! If you LOVE the song that begins to play, increase your speed by 0.1 mph. Then, every time the chorus plays, increase your speed by another 0.1 mph. Keep increasing until the song ends and then return back to your "low" pace. 
• If you do not like the song playing, or only somewhat like it, increase your incline every time the chorus plays by 0.5%. By the end of the song, go back to your normal incline. Mine is 1.0%.
• If you feel tired on any song, use this time to keep at your "low" pace without speeding up or increasing incline. This time is going to be used to recover. Start increasing your speed or incline with the next song.

I did this for 5 miles and absolutely loved every second of it. I only peeked at my mileage twice to get an idea of when to stop, but other than that, I did not track my distance or time. Though, I did end up finishing faster than I expected.

Here was my playlist/workout:
"Work It, Bitch" - Britney Spears (Warm Up)
"Blow" - Ke$ha (Increase to "low" speed)
"Satisfaction" - The Biz (Speed)
"Wrecking Ball" - Miley Cyrus (Incline)
"Shots" - LMFAO (Speed)
"Breathe" - Dev (Incline)
"Top of the World" - The Cataracs (Incline)
"Super Bass" - Nicki Minaj (Speed)
"Till the World Ends" - Britney Spears (Speed)
"Love You Like A Love Song" - Selena Gomez (Speed)
"Good Feeling" - Flo Rida (Incline)
"Paparazzi" - Lady Gaga (Speed)

I will definitely be repeating this game tomorrow.

Will you try my treadmill game? If you do, tell me if you enjoyed it!

What are some things you do to help make a treadmill workout fun?