Impressing yourself at the gym is key to staying motivated.
And few things are more impressive than running multiple miles – especially if you aren’t a regular runner or are intimidated by a 5K. Looking at the treadmill and marveling at how long you ran for or how far you went will bring you back to the gym to do it again.
But first you have to see that impressive number on your treadmill screen – and that’s where Precision Running, a new class offered at Equinox, comes in.
In roughly 30 minutes of running on a treadmill with a coach, you’ll spend time working on speed, incline, duration and recovery.
The class is broken up into three parts, each around 11 minutes of intervals of both running and recovery — though each segment might have a different twist. You could be running at an incline that steadily increases, or getting less and less time to catch your breath between intervals, or cranking up your speed.
You set your own pace, but you need to know what speed you can run at for a minute; this is how you determine your challenge throughout the class.
So, you’re not getting out of doing the work – you are there to run. But the short bursts make things seem much more doable than, say, deciding you are just going to go out and run five miles.
An average runner can run five miles in the class, though a more elite runner could fit in up to seven, Hogg said. Someone looking to run a 5K could use the class exclusively to train for it; distance runners could use it to work on their speed.
Jenn Hogg, Equinox’s group fitness manager, said runners across the spectrum of experience and fitness have found inspiration – and relief – from what they accomplish in class.
“Most of them see they ran a 5K in this class,” Hogg said.
If they’re signed up for a running event they’re nervous about, “[They think], ‘I am going to be able to finish this race,’ ” Hogg said.
Where: The Gold Coast, Loop and Lincoln Park Equinox locations. The Highland Park gym will launch Precision Running in September.
