Treadmill V02 Max "All Out" Workout

My speed workout on Friday was WILD. I was hoping to be out on River Road as we had some melting mid-week last week, but we had another 1/2 inch of snow on Thursday that took any outdoor speed work off the table. Dang.

I'd recently done some good tempo runs and some treadmill intervals, so I wanted to do something different. I dug deep into the training library and found this hard V02 max workout from 12 years ago... and then I re-did that at home in 2021 during Covid and again the following year. But it had been nearly 4 years since trying this workout.

This treadmill workout is simple but brutal: you warm-up for 2 miles, then bump up the speed by 0.5 mph every 60 seconds until you die!

I started at 7.6 mph to 8.0 mph for the 2 mile warm-up. I went an extra 16 seconds to start my "speed" at 16 minutes on the nose, which started at 8.5 mph. Then 9.0 mph at 17:00, then 9.5 mph at 18:00, then 10.0 mph at 19:00, etc, etc. I was aware that I held 12.0 mph (my treadmill's max) for 2 minutes in 2021, and then for 4 minutes the last time I tried this workout in 2022. I was shooting for 4:00 at 12.0 mph.

This is the kind of workout where things are going fine until they aren't. I'm running one second, and then I'm finding myself jumping off the treadmill saying "uncle" the next second.

In the end, I was content with getting up to 12.0 mph and holding that for 3:00. I had half-mile splits in that speed session of 3:05, 2:52, 2:33, and 1:30 (0.3 miles) totaling 10:02 for 1.8 miles (5:34.44/mile). Yes, at 12.0 mph I'm covering 0.1 mile in 0:30 because it's 5:00/mile pace. And YES, it's a bit easier than running outside, but I'll take what speedwork I can get on a slippery and cold winter's day!

This pic is 21 sec after jumping off the treadmill to catch my breath, 3.8 miles into the run (2.0 mile warm-up and 1.8 miles of working my way up to max):

Graph showing building speed.


Pace really shows hitting top speed and holding it there...


... and my stide length shows that well too.

I'm not excited to try this again any time soon, but maybe sometime in Febuary or March I'll try to last longer than 3:00 at 12 mph.