Fleeing zombies on a treadmill

I went for a treadmill run with “Zombies, Run!” this morning. Despite it seeming like a particularly ineffective way to flee the zombies, it was by a wide margin the easiest 30-minute treadmill run I’ve ever had. I can usually just barely get myself to run 20 minutes on a treadmill.

I’ve gotten in the habit of setting any treadmill to an incline of 1%, because I find that matches my speed on the treadmill with my perceived level of effort. (That is, when I’m running at a 10-minute pace on the treadmill, it feels about like running at a 10-minute pace outdoors, if the treadmill is set at a 1% incline.)

This particular run came out at just over 31 minutes and just over 2.5 miles. I had turned off the GPS on the game and told it to use the accelerometer instead. At the default setting, it suggested that I’d gone 2.31 miles, so I bumped up the stride length by about 8%. Next run I’ll see if the treadmill distance and accelerometer distance aren’t just about the same.

I’ve been playing the game with the zombie chases turned off. That was mainly with the thought that it would increase replayability—I figured once I finished all the missions, I could go back and play them all again with zombie chases turned on for a fresh experience. Since I’m currently in no danger of running out of missions, I might turn them on for treadmill runs, to add a bit more variety.