For all you runners, I'm planning to buy a treadmill early next month since I just cleaned out the garage and have lots of space!
What kind of routines do you do? On top of doing the P90, I'd like to build up my endurance. How often do you run? Is there any good websites/guides out there?
Well, for starters, I hate treadmills! I find them insanely boring and if I have to do a long run on a treadmill (longer than 5 miles) I actually start to get some vertigo symptoms going on.
That said, living in the Midwest, I pretty much have to use one for at least some portions of my training. I try to be back to running outside before I have to start doing 7 milers, but this year the weather has been so crappy in late winter/early spring I was inside for my first 7 (it was not pleasant.)
There are several different kinds of interval workouts you can do using a treadmill. The most obvious is a speed workout; you can increase your speed for an amount of time/distance, then decrease the amount of speed for an amount of time/distance, then back up, then back down. If you're just getting started you can easily use this with the Couch to 5K program.
The other option is to slowly increase your speed until you hit a peak, then decrease your speed on the other side. Here's one that has you working up to a peak then you work back down:
http://housewifeglamour.com/cardio/31-minute-5k-treadmill-workout/
The other option is to use the incline feature if yours has one. I actually don't use my incline feature anymore because it aggravates my hip flexors to run on an incline on the treadmill then hit the pavement outside (it's Illinois, the pavement is pretty flat out there!) But lots of people use it with no problems. Again you can do intervals raising the incline then lowering it, or do a full long hill workout where you steadily increase the incline to a peak then work your way back down.
And of course there's the option to increase your speed and incline and mix it up with both. Some treadmills come equipped with pre-programmed workouts too so you can always explore those.
If you do a Google for treadmill interval workouts you should come up with a bunch; if you're on Pinterest there's a bunch there too. A friend of mine pins one at least once a week. =P
As for websites, I lurk around Runners World plenty, reading articles and browsing the forums too. Nerd Fitness has a subforum for running but it's not very busy due to NF being very much a LIFT HEAVY STUFF kind of website. There are some runners on there but I am more likely to see somebody mention their running in the non-running subforums haha.
In training season, I run three-four times a week, sometimes five depending on if I feel good, and I cycle twice a week, plus strength training/weight lifting two-three times a week. Schedule right now looks like this:
Sunday: Long Run, yoga strength (9 miles this week)
Monday: Light recovery run, medium length, yoga stretch (5 miles)
Tuesday: Cycling, ab class, lift weights (average of 25 miles in cycling)
Wednesday: Short run fast pace, yoga stretch (3 miles) - if I'm hurting or tired I might skip this run.
Thursday: Cycling, lift weights (25 miles)
Friday: Medium length run, yoga stretch (5 miles)
Saturday: Whatever day - rest day or lifting weights or an easy short run (3-4 miles)
In my off season, excepting the height of summer, I run two or three times a week at least, cycle twice a week and strength/weight lifting two to three times a week, and also this is when I take a bunch of classes at the gym for fun. There is no schedule for that really, because without a goal race I'm just kind of running because I love to run. I usually do a 3/3/6 pattern in the off-season. My natural "very easy" run pace is a 10 minute mile, so that gives me two 30 minute runs and a one hour long run, so pretty light really. The days I don't cycle I may pop in another run if I feel like it depending on what else I'm doing, sometimes I just sprint out a quick mile and that's all I do.
In the middle of summer I back off running quite a bit. The heat is one thing, I can run in heat. But being the Midwest you wake up at 5AM and it's already ridiculously humid. I can't breathe well in high humidity, so I just don't run when the weather is like that. We typically will get one, maybe two days a week where the humidity breaks, and I'm like YES GO RUN IMMEDIATELY and I get in a run, it just depends on how I feel, but typically it's 4-5 miles on those days. If I'm at the gym for something else (besides cycling) I may go down and hit the treadmill for a quick 3 miler since I'm there anyway. I don't tend to use my treadmill at home during the summer very often for whatever reason.
Then once the humidity starts to break for the fall it's training season again so everything ramps right back up. I run a 3/3/3 at first without long runs so I can just work on my speed, my form, and just getting back into the habit of the schedule, then add the long run back in again (usually just in time for it to start snowing and having to do those long runs on the treadmill. =P)
It's probably different for runners who don't really do any goal races, so don't have real training seasons... but I wouldn't know about that since ever since I started running I've had goal races!