What are the most important considerations when purchasing a treadmill? To find out, I had a chat with John Cammidge, who sells treadmills at the Fitness Superstore, a UK based company.

The most important features that you should look for when purchasing a treadmill that you plan to run on are different than if you were just getting one to walk on. Here are some of the most important:

• Top Speed: If the treadmill can not go fast enough for you to get your workout in, then you aren’t going to use it and you won’t get a good workout if you do use it. A commercial treadmill will usually max out at around 12 miles per hour, which is about 4:50/mile pace.
• Roller Size: The larger a roller, the longer it will last. Look for a roller that has a diameter of 2 inches, or 2½ inches if you can find and afford it. A 1½ inch roller will have to complete many more revolutions to cover the same distance as a larger roller.
• Motor Horsepower: If you plan on doing any sort of long run on your treadmill, then you are going to need at least a 3 horsepower motor. If you only plan on going for short runs or don’t plan on using the treadmill very frequently, then a 1.5HP motor will probably suit your purposes.
• Warranty: If the warranty is short, then the manufacturer has no faith in their product. Be sure to look for a long default manufacturer warranty that covers motor, frame, and labor. You do not want to have to send the treadmill back to the manufacturer for repairs; they should be able to provide on site maintenance through a local contractor.
• Belt Size: The faster you plan on running on your treadmill, then the larger of a belt that you will need. You will also want to make sure that the belt is long enough for your height, so that you do not step off of the front or back of the treadmill.

My wife inherited a treadmill from her grandmother when they sold their house. Despite being many years old, it was basically new as her grandmother rarely used it. Even so, I can’t bring myself to run on it. It is just too slow and too small for me, and I feel that if I were to use it that it would fall apart. When my wife uses it, she only goes for brisk walks.

Based upon my own experiences with treadmills, there are a few other points that you may want to consider when purchasing your treadmill.

• Decibel Level: How loud is the treadmill when it is operating? Our treadmill is extremely noisy, and one of our prime considerations when we replace it is going to be how loud the new one is. A heavy, stable frame will help to cut down on the noise.
• Computer: If you like to have programmable workouts on your treadmill, then be sure to purchase a treadmill with an intuitive display. I have never actually used this feature past looking at how long I’ve been running, how far I’ve ran, and how fast I am currently going. I manually use the incline/decline and speed buttons to control my workouts.
• Max Incline: I never use an incline less than 2 degrees, although I’ll ramp it up as far as 8 or 10 degrees during a workout. If you want to fight boredom and change your workout up, one of the few “terrain” types of changes that you can make with a treadmill is the level of incline.
• Price: How much your treadmill costs is going to make a big difference in what sort of features you are going to get, although the price of manufacturing has been coming down and treadmills have been getting more affordable. You will probably want to spend a few extra dollars to get a treadmill mat, even if you are not worried about protecting your floors. The treadmill mat will prevent dust and dirt from getting sucked up into the motor, which sucks particles up off of the floor due to the static electricity that it generates as it operates. A floor mat can keep your treadmill operating more efficiently and help it to last longer.

This article has been sponsored by The Fitness Superstore, who recommend the following 2 models for serious runners: Horizon-Elite 507 Folding Treadmill – Tunturi-T85 Folding Treadmill

Table of contents for Hornet Juice

1. What is hornet juice, and how can it help athletic performance?

I was recently contacted by Rina Ward to sample and review Hornet Juice, a powdered drink that is supposed to boost athletic performance. For all of the buzz about Hornet Juice, I did not really know all that much about it. There are two websites that the company maintains. At HornetJuice.com, you can purchase the product, and at Vaam-Power.com you can learn a bit more about what it is and how it works.

First, hornet juice is not your typical energy drink. Unlike Gatorade or Gu or other products of that nature, hornet juice does not actually replenish the fuel in your body as your work out. You could mix it with those products to get that sort of an effect, but that is not the purpose of taking it. The idea behind hornet juice is that it helps your body to metabolize fat for energy rather than glycogen. Theoretically, this would cause your glycogen stores to last longer, provide you with more readily available fuel than you might otherwise have during endurance exercise, and will help you burn off fat if you are currently trying to lose weight.

Despite the name, Hornet Juice does not contain any substances that are actually harvested from live hornets. It is not even juice; it is a powdered mixture that you shake into your water bottle. The idea for Hornet Juice comes from the Giant Japanese Hornet (Vespa Mandarinia), which can fly 50 to 100 kilometers per day despite being unable to eat any solid foods. The hornet kills other insects, and grinds up their bodies into a “meatball” that it feeds to young larvae. The larvae then secrete a protein solution that the adults consume. The ingredients in Hornet Juice are synthesized versions of the amino acids that are present in the solution created by the young hornets.

The concept does not sound completely preposterous, but it is hard to believe the claims made by the company. There are quite a few happy customer testimonials included on the websites, and Hornet Juice is known to have been used by at least a few Olympians. I recently read a positive product review by Thomas Bubendorfer over at Complete Running.

The website has a pretty good FAQ Page if you are interested in reading more about the product. The price ranges from $2.25/serving to $1.70/serving depending upon the quantity that you order, which while not cheap does put it at in the range of what you can expect to pay for most sports drinks.

If you are interested in the hornets themselves, I found this video on their site that is pretty interesting. It does not discuss the drink at all, but you can see where the inspiration came from:

I will write a review of the product itself once I have had a chance to sample it on a couple of long runs. Have you ever used Vaam (an earlier product available in Japan based on the same principles) or Hornet Juice? How did it work out for you?

Please Note: This is a sponsored post.

By joining this introductory program you get access to exclusive features, personalized training and support, tons of useful articles and information to take your running to the next level, a pre-race party where you’ll meet fellow athletes, and membership in an active community of athletes who share your passion.

Signing up is very easy; the site uses some neat effects to show you the different options you need to set when joining the site. If you have any disabilities then you may have a little trouble, as there is a captcha on one of the pages that you have to type in to prove that you are a human.

Once you sign up, you are given your own blog. You get your own subdomain, and for anybody with a wordpress website then the interface will be quite familiar. The training log is actually integrated right into the normal article posting system, which is very neat. There are quite a few reports that you can look at, although my charts are not very exciting as I have only recorded one workout in it. There is a very good blog stats plugin installed, though; I am going to need to check that out and install it here at Run to Win. You can see my sample site at: http://runtowin.konamoxt.com/

There is a library of articles about different sports that you can browse through, and a user forum with a few hundred posts. The forum does not seem to be very active, but that may change as the half marathon comes closer.

The main page once you have logged into your personally branded site has the main options front and center, making it easy to navigate through the administrative interface. There are quite a few options for customizing the look of your site, and if you wanted you could import your current blog into this Konamoxt. On the flip side, there is also an option to export your site out of Konamoxt.

The welcome email includes your login details, and links for where to sign up for the Las Vegas half marathon. It also lets you know to expect to be contacted by the coach in the near future to set up a training plan for you. I am not sure whether she will get in touch with me or not, since I do not actually plan to run the race this year.

If you are looking for a half marathon in December, and have any interest in traveling to Las Vegas, then this site would probably be worth signing up at. You would get a racing singlet, a pre-race party, and somebody to give you a training plan and help you along with weekly emails.

If you are not planning on running the race, I am not so sure that it is worth signing up. I already have my own website and am happy with my current training log solutions that I use, so I do not intend to track my training through this site. While the website is quite ingenious and would be very appropriate for somebody who has not set up their own website yet, it does not seem to have quite the level of power and control that I would require for myself.

You can sign up (or browse around) the site at the following address:

If any of you have signed up for the program, let me know how well the training program works for you. I am curious about how successful this program is going to be and would love to hear your stories.

Please Note: This is a sponsored post.

The content is certainly worth looking at, but it is a bit sporadic. Multiple articles will appear in chunks, but after a day or three of 3 to 6 articles appearing there can be a break of over a week until a new slew appears. This would be a great site for an RSS feed reader, but she only offers partial feeds so you will need to click through to read the articles.

The articles are easily digested, being for the most part either a short introduction with a bulleted list (such as tips for starting a fitness program) or a short question and answer format (such as how to eat healthy at a Mexican restaurant).

I have added the No Excuses Gym site to my feed reader and plan on following it for a month or two to get to know the site a little better. It never hurts to find new tips here and there or to be reminded of a few tips that you have stopped following religously.

Please Note: This is a sponsored post.