Treadmill Desk Day 1

Great Round 1

It took almost all day, but my Treadmill Desk is complete! There are some adjustments I need to make, but overall, a fantastic first start. I’ve been walking for about 30 minutes between 1 and 1.5 mph now and haven’t really noticed.

The Idea

I sit all day, every day at a desk. Sometimes, I don’t even leave my apartment for days in a row. Code has a way of crawling into your brain and not letting go for hours. I’ll look at the clock and hours have passed and I haven’t moved. This alone has made me want a treadmill desk for a while but I never quite got around to doing it.

But lately, a new problem has reared its ugly head that motivated me to actually go through with the treadmill desk idea. You see, most of the time I spend sitting is with my legs criss-crossed since I’m too short for normal desks and chairs. My knees are protesting. Loudly!

That was enough to push me over the hump and treadmill shopping.

The Setup

First, I obviously needed a treadmill. A few things were important to me. It needed to be quiet since I’d be on it a lot. The arms needed to be as close to parallel to the ground as possible so that I didn’t have to worry about a keyboard sliding off. It had to be able to run under 1 mph. And it needed to be less than $800. The Proform 505 CST Treadmill was the winner! I paid $599 and Amazon delivered inside my two story apartment for free. Yay for Amazon Prime!

My mom got me a wireless keyboard and mouse for Christmas, which I needed to be able to set the keyboard on a board across the treadmill arms. It makes it a really good level to type easily.  (Thanks Mom!)

Now, I assumed that there would be times that I would want to sit down to work. So, I wanted to keep my desk. The idea of building a desk topper that would raise my monitors and be easily removable was born. Off to Home Depot.

But first, some measurement questions…  How high do the monitors need to be? How wide did something need to be to set the monitors on? How long did the board need to be to go across the treadmill arms? I should have also measured the width of my desk but didn’t think of it until I was in Home Depot searching for a way to raise my monitors high enough. This was the hardest part. There weren’t any great options so I ended up with two step stools and a board (thanks Dad for the  idea). I also grabbed a shelf to go across the treadmill arms. Total: $35.

That’s it. I put it all together and hopped on!

Thoughts so Far

My monitors are too far away from me. I’m squinting or zooming which is very annoying. To fix this, I ordered a laptop holder from Amazon ($39) that is supposed to attach directly to your treadmill. That may sorta solve the monitor problem, but it give me another on since it will only bring one monitor close. I may end up building shelves an putting my treadmill closer to the wall but that would make swapping from desk to treadmill harder. I’ll have to see how things progress.

I’m now at 1:15 minutes and 1.425 miles. Wow! This may also help me keep track of time. I really haven’t any problems. I’m walking barefoot so that’s kinda fun. I sorta feel like I’m swaying…. there’s a nice rhythm to it.

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