Weddingbee boards

Hi Bees- 

DH and I are thinking about buying a treadmill, either used on craigslist or a cheaper one from walmart or somewhere. 

Can any treadmill runners out there give me tips on favorite brands, things to look for, important features, etc? 

Thanks!!

I like running outside better than treadmills, but things on a treadmill that help me are: (1) fans built in to the display that you can turn on or off. (2) if the display can be turned off, that is great so the time/distance isn't in my face the whole time (3) buttons that allow you to plug in a ceratin speed, like 6.0 mph instead of having to press the up button until it gets up to that speed (4) when you press stop, I like treadmills that gradually stop instead of the ones that stop too abruptly. (5) there are emergency stop buttons on treadmills and you have to watch out for their placement. I like to run far up on the treadmill, close to the display, so sometimes my tummy will hit the emergency stop button by accident and that is just the worst.

Thanks, Jacqi! Running outside isn't going so well for us right now (our dogs are bad runners and I get guilty if we don't take them to the park with us, no sidewalks in our neighborhood, etc) so we're hoping to score a treadmill for a couple hundred bucks to give it a try. I know it won't have all the bells and whistles, but we also don't want to drop many hundreds of dollars on something we may or may not use regularly. 

anybody else?

anybody? 

Thanks in advance!  

I would highly recommend getting one that will allow you to vary the incline settings.  I run the "hills" setting all the time.  The reason I love it is because it lets you burn more calories in the same amount of time.  So if I only have 20 minutes to work out, I could run two miles flat and burn 200 calories, or I could run hills, still do two miles, and get 250 calories.  Plus, if I'm training for speed, running on the hill setting for two weeks makes running flat seem so easy, that when I try it, I find that my mile time has gone way down.

I second what jacqu said about being able to hide your time/distance.  If you stare at that while running (and it is SO tempting) it will be way harder.  Each second seems so long!  I have to turn mine off to avoid going crazy lol!

I think most have the emergency stops nowadays, but if you are looking for a used one, make sure it has one.  It should be a little clip with a line running into the machine, so if you fall off it pulls the line and shuts off the machine.  It happened to me once (I fainted) and I was totally glad the belt stopped!