On Friday 23 January, 2026, I ran a marathon on my treadmill in preparation for a 60K ultra-marathon (the Zestig van Texel). As I was at home with my 1.5 year old son, who I could keep monitored while he was asleep this way, this long run had to be done on the treadmill in my garage.
Most of my long runs I run at 4:20-4:30 per kilometer, but I thought it would be a 'fun' challenge to run a sub-3 hour marathon on a treadmill once, requiring a pace of at least 4:16 per kilometer. Will I make it within 3 hours?
For those interested in doing a treadmill marathon themselves, or those who just want to see an admittedly somewhat crazy experiment, I have made a summary video (<5 minutes) showing running footage with pace, distance and other details overlayed, and some technical details, lap times, evaluation et cetera. Watch it at https://youtu.be/ZMJDv8gvqso.
It was a fun experiment, but an experiment at that. I don't plan doing another treadmill marathon soon.
Details and links
- Treadmill: Finnlo Technum IV
- Shoes: Hoka Carbon X2
- Watch: Garmin Fenix 6S Pro
- Heart-rate strap: Garmin HRM-Pro Plus
- Camera: GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition
- Speed/distance registration: North Pole Engineering Runn Sensor
- Software for data overlay: https://fitoverlay.com
- Music: Motivation in Motion, https://www.pixabay.com (royalty free)
- Treadmill calibration: https://www.reuneker.nl/files/treadmill
- Speed/pace calculations: https://www.reuneker.nl/files/runcalc
