 Welcome to film my run. My name is Stephen Cousins. Today we're going to do something a little bit different something I very rarely if ever do and that's analyze the data in some of my runs Particularly what we're going to do is look at the difference between running on a treadmill and running outdoors I've got four marathons to look at two of them will run on a treadmill indoors two of them will run Outdoors a lot of people say that running on a treadmill is more difficult Some people say it's easier, but most people say it's more difficult to run indoors on a treadmill There are a variety of reasons for that one of them could be the indoor temperature lack of air flow Makes your heart rate higher for example perhaps Or a poor quality treadmill with a poor motor which makes you work harder or seemingly harder Your perceived exertion is harder on the treadmill to get the same speed or to cover the same map different Distance in the same time So lots of reasons why people think running on a treadmill is harder What I feel is that they should be the same so your treadmill running indoors needs to match your running outdoors in terms of the effort that you make over the same distance for the same time So if you run 10k in one hour Outdoors then you should do 10k in one hour indoors for the same level of effort So your heart rate or your power numbers or your perceived exertion should feel the same Indoors and outdoors. I know that's not the case for a lot of people, but it should be So I'm gonna have a look at three four marathons now So let's start with a marathon from March 2019. So over a year ago year and a half or so ago This was a treadmill marathon the Watopia run festival on Zwift And I did it in a time of three hours 29 minutes for 42.2 kilometers Now training peaks which is what I'm using here gives you what's called a TSS score That's a training stress score. It's basically how much stress your body was under or how hard you were having to work to achieve that result And also what training peaks does is it measures your fitness based on number of different Measures and an algorithm that judges how fit you are So my fitness level at this time March 2019 was 52 So just bear that number in mind 52 and a TSS score for this run of 217 Let's just look at the heart rate and the power and the speed So my speed for this run was 12.1 kilometers per hour My average heart rate was one five one and my power average was 240 so that's for an indoor run on in March 2019 now, let's look at an outdoor run one month later I run the Paris marathon and I run the Paris marathon in two hours 33 minutes But I've actually covered a little bit more ground almost a kilometer more in terms of distance covered So you can argue that the distance and time for these is the same one kilometer in about four four and a half minutes 329 and 333 for slightly more distance so we can argue they're the same I'm about the same level of fitness. Maybe not quite as fit 48 as opposed to 52 not a not a big difference really to be honest and I've had to work a little bit harder. So maybe because I'm not quite as fit I've had to work a little bit harder in Paris according to the TSS score. My body was under a bit more stress However, if we look at heart rate My heart rate is actually the average heart rate is lower so one five one average heart rate for the indoor run and One four seven average heart rate for the outdoor run But then if we look at power Average power is two three nine as opposed to average power in here to 40 Hardly any difference at all really So perhaps I was working a little bit harder indoors and maybe that was to do with Warm the heat of the indoor environment who knows But maybe maybe there's some other factor that we don't know about there are a lot of parameters that affect Why your heart rate might be high? But really there's I mean it's four beats per minute difference It is a little bit higher, but not massively higher. Is it it's not huge the maximum heart rate goes higher Certainly sprinting at the end here to try and get in probably in under three hours 30. Maybe I pushed my max heart rate there So those are those two runs then we come to this year Now this year. I'm a bit fitter So we look at June this year for an indoor run Now I'm much fitter than I was last year look 48 fitness 81 fitness But I'm a bit more tired so fatigue is 61 For the Paris Marathon, but fatigue is a bit greater. So I'm a bit more tired going into this run But I am also fitter going into this room Now if we look at heart rate one four six heart rate So actually the same the same heart rate For the same run In all three pretty much the same average heart rate Unfortunately, there are no power numbers for this run. I didn't obviously wear my stride foot pod For this run. So we're gonna have to work just off power speed average speed for this is 11.6 So slower than these two runs the Paris run and last year's treadmill marathon But I did achieve a slower time So and I've worked slightly harder as well two three nine as opposed to two twenty and two Seventeen TSS school, but it is based off heart rate. So that can sometimes affect things can be slightly different So if I am fitter than I was in the previous two marathons and my heart rate is on average About the same. Why is it that I wasn't able to achieve? The two thirty marathon time. Well, I think it's down to heat. We're running in June indoors in this shed here, which is affected by the heat It's very hot in here. There are some big windows even though I had the doors wide open and you can see here I was maintaining a high level of pace All the way I was managing to keep about 12 kilometers per hour all the way until about 35 kilometers in when I cracked I broke and My my pace basically plummets and my heart rate Comes down with that as well So I basically give up here and the last seven kilometers is dead slow Just grinding it home. So if the heat hadn't got to me Perhaps I would have managed to maintain That all the way to the end and perhaps if it had been outdoors that would have been the case who knows So let's go on to the marathon that I did 48 hours ago the virtual London Marathon my fitness is a lot greater 103 Because I've been putting a lot of miles in over the last few weeks You can see that my effort level two four one Is higher than last year's marathons to twenty and two seventeen in terms of power And you can see my average power is higher to five five average power compared to two forty to forty and two three nine on last year's indoor and outdoor marathons So what can we say about this? Well, I am fitter. I'm able to run faster For the same heart rate one four eight heart rate here one four six one four seven and 151 slightly higher there But for pretty much the same heart rate I'm actually able to run quicker because I am fitter over the same distance Power numbers are greater. I'm stronger And able to do that outdoor marathon in a quicker time Just for fun, I've changed the TSS score instead of reading from power. I've changed it to heart rate So this is the virtual London marathon from 48 hours ago TSS score of two three six for a three twenty-four marathon Indoors a TSS score of two three nine for June's Watopia run festival in three thirty seven so Slightly harder work to get the London marathon done than that one, but I did do it slower and it wasn't as fit and Two three nine for the Paris marathon. So again, we're pretty much two three six two three nine two three nine and two six four So my fitness level of 51 in March 2019 has made me work a lot harder to get a sub 330 marathon on the treadmill Then it does for me to get a pretty much comparable because remember I've gone a bit further in terms of distance I didn't have to work as hard to get the same marathon result outdoors For this about the same fitness And then we jump to the next indoor marathon I've had to work exactly the same the same level of effort has gone in to this marathon as To the previous marathon the Paris marathon, but I've got a slower time And we've attributed that to the heat of the day in June So I've worked just as hard Same heart rate But I've just collapsed with the heat at the end of the run And that's why we've got a much slower time or seven eight minutes difference in time Because of that last bit of work there, which wasn't quite as good So I think what I'm beginning to conclude From looking at this data is that perhaps it is a bit harder on the treadmill than it is Outdoors certainly for this these marathon examples It looks like I'm the same level of fitness last year pretty much for indoors and outdoors And the only thing that's making it different because the times are the same for the distances so 333 for 43 kilometers or 329 for 42 kilometers And it's the same time essentially and the only difference being That we seem to have worked a lot harder 264 an average heart rate 151 with a max heart rate of 176 I seem to have worked a lot harder for that time indoors Then I have for this time outdoors Over the same that you know, it's the same distance the same time And if we go to the two more recent marathons, it seems like I've worked harder here For a slower time Than my marathon a couple of days ago only slightly harder two three six HRTSS for a time of three 24 But I have worked a little bit harder and got 13 minutes slower time You can see my speed is slower, although my heart rate is similar And that's because we're indoors and I haven't been able to cope with the heat indoors And maybe if I'd been outdoors that wouldn't have happened this slow down in the last 7k wouldn't have happened So again, we're possibly arguing that it is a little bit more difficult to run a marathon on a treadmill Indoors than it is to run one outdoors Also, I think it's just worth noting that I run on the treadmill at zero percent So I'm not a lot of people will add one percent incline because they feel it makes it more realistic To outdoor running but on the evidence that we've got here that perhaps actually treadmill running is more difficult I'm running at zero percent So I don't want to make it even more difficult for myself By raising the incline by one percent It is just as hard if not harder to run on a treadmill indoors than it is to run outdoors Let me know in the comments what you think do you agree with me Do you think that I've made any errors here in my assessment of the power or heart rate? Measures so so that's it guys. Thanks very much for watching. I hope this hasn't been too tedious for you to get through There'll be another film my run epic marathon coming soon I currently editing the Buell water marathon so that should be out soon take care Thank you very much for watching and we'll see you again. Take care. Bye. Bye