With the heat index as high as it was yesterday and the weather folks advising the air quality was poor for outside activity, I took my workout to the treadmill.

It's been months since I've run on the treadmill, since it's pretty much my least favorite form of running, but the weather is out of my control and you've just gotta do what you've gotta do.

I decided I'd mix it up to keep things interesting and ended up with a killer 40-minute hill workout.

I used the treadmill's pre-programmed hills setting set to level 10 for the first half of the workout. The workout started with a long, gradual climb and then alternated between one minute of steep climbing and one minute flat. The steepest elevation I climb in the first half was the 7.0 setting.

I paused the treadmill half way through to stretch (my left quad was tight from hiking on Sunday) and grab some water.

The second half I kicked the elevation up a notch and alternated running up steeper hills. I think this time the highest climb was and 8.0 or an 8.5.

Mixing things up like this actually made the 40 minutes go by pretty quickly and it was a killer workout. I was completely drenched in sweat by the time I finished.

It kind of looks like I just stepped out of the shower.

The forecast for the rest of the week is just as hot and humid as yesterday, so I may be spending a lot of time on the treadmill this week. If you have an entertaining treadmill workout, feel free to share it in the comments so I have some variety this week!