When David Roche — who’s each a profitable coach and runner — first began coaching constantly on a treadmill a number of years in the past, he had little concept that his life as an athlete or method to teaching had been about to alter dramatically. Then in 2024, he broke Matt Carpenter’s 19-year-old Leadville 100 Mile course document by greater than 16 minutes. Satisfied about the advantages of treadmill coaching for ultras and uninterested in utilizing treadmills he didn’t love, he bought a Wahoo KICKR RUN on the advice of different runners. Now a Wahoo Health-sponsored athlete, Roche doesn’t attempt to comprise his enthusiasm when recalling his then sticker-price buy: “I used to be type of obsessed instantly. You set this factor right down to its most four-minute tempo, and it doesn’t bounce in any respect. It doesn’t make any noise.”
Later that yr, Roche went on to win the 2024 Javelina 100 Mile, and in 2025, he reset the Leadville 100 Mile course document by one other 14 minutes. Roche is fast to credit score the treadmill for his success, saying, “I’m scared to consider how my private athletic journey might need unfolded as a result of, for the longest time, I used to be identical to, ‘I’m only a coach, and the racing I do is secondary to that.’ Then I began utilizing a treadmill and located high-carb fueling, and swiftly, I’m so significantly better than I assumed I might be.”
Roche, who, alongside his spouse Megan Roche, coaches high runners together with Hans Troyer, Anna Gibson, Tara Dower, and Jess McClain, started incorporating uphill treadmill work into the programming he gave his athletes. He admits, “The treadmill is a kind of coaching instruments that I really feel a little bit uncomfortable speaking about as a result of I nonetheless suppose it’s one of many solely secrets and techniques now we have left, the place our athletes have some benefit nonetheless as a result of all people hasn’t dedicated to it in the identical manner now we have.”
However based on Roche, a top quality treadmill just like the Wahoo KICKR RUN isn’t only for the elites: “The place it might need probably the most good thing about all is for ageing athletes. We coach 50-plus-year-old athletes, who, with the treadmill, can do classes that they may have been capable of do once they had been 25, and really feel like 1,000,000 bucks the subsequent day.”
All of it comes right down to how a treadmill just like the Wahoo KICKR RUN, with its 15% most incline, cushioned deck, and straightforward adjustability, can take the load off the physique whereas supercharging the cardio stimulus.
The Wahoo KICKR RUN. Photograph: Wahoo
Uphill Treadmill Coaching Concept
Roche performed soccer in faculty. He’d by no means been coached as a runner, so when he acquired his begin within the sport in 2007, he needed to be taught every part from the bottom up. He says, “It was conducive to being actually open and having no preconceived notions about how coaching ought to work.” He notes, “I had by no means been on a treadmill. It appeared just like the worst factor on the earth.”
When coming back from an damage in 2014 and unable to run on flat floor, he began operating uphill on a treadmill at his condominium advanced, pondering, It’s higher than nothing. He says, “Once I got here again, my zone 2 paces had improved on the similar coronary heart charges.” Puzzled however curious, he prescribed an analogous intervention when one of many athletes he was teaching wanted to return from an damage. That they had the identical outcome.
Roche says, “I began experimenting an increasing number of, to the purpose that it grew to become a secret weapon for some time for our athletes. Uphill treadmill wasn’t simply making them nice climbers, it was making them shockingly quick.” In response to Roche, uphill treadmill “is a device the place you may accumulate extremely giant quantities of labor with little or no stress.”
David Roche within the early miles of setting a brand new males’s course document on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photograph: Life Time
For a lot of runners, operating quantity earlier than physique breakdown and time accessible for coaching are their two predominant limiters. Roche says, “If you happen to put a treadmill at 10% or 12% or 15%, principally you’re going to seek out which you could run fairly sluggish paces and be on the very high finish of your zone 2. And also you’re getting that with out the influence of doing that outdoors, the place should you’re pushing that regular reasonable zone, you’re simply going to get beat up and decelerate a little bit bit.”
Roche believes that utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUN, with its most incline of 15%, can largely exchange cross coaching for including cardio quantity. “The quantity of cardio stimulus finally ends up approximating extra what cyclists can get, who’re way more aerobically match than runners for probably the most half. However you get the advantages of operating, which you don’t get in biking.”
Utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUN additionally supplies a wealth of invaluable knowledge that’s troublesome to gather when operating outdoors, together with floor contact time, operating cadence, and vertical oscillations. Connecting the KICKR RUN to main coaching apps makes it simple to view and perceive the information.
Private Expertise With the Wahoo KICKR RUN
In response to Roche, what the Wahoo KICKR RUN allowed was for him to “change into a grown-ass man aerobically.” He explains that whereas he’d achieved loads of 100-mile weeks in coaching earlier than, “there’s something about getting on a treadmill and operating uphill for 90 minutes or two hours, whether or not that’s regular or these large exercises, that simply modified the way in which my physique tailored over time.” He used it to do double exercises, and he says, “I noticed, over time, my health and the flexibility to have good fatigue resistance improved.” Leaning into the high-carb vitamin mannequin allowed him to do higher-intensity treadmill exercises. He says the mix of high-carb fueling and the Wahoo KICKR RUN “let me do issues at 35 or 36 years previous that I might not have the ability to do outdoors.”
David Roche proudly accepting the Golden Ticket for his win on the 2024 Javelina 100 Mile. Photograph: Cody Naked
A few of his favourite treadmill exercises, together with 12 one-mile repeats, wouldn’t be potential outside. “I might be so injured so shortly, and simply damaged down usually, and hating operating.” However when he does the exercise on the Wahoo KICKR RUN, he says, “I can really feel like 1,000,000 bucks for parenting and work after which one other run or bike later within the day.”
Roche’s outcomes all through 2024 and 2025 communicate for themselves, as do these of his athletes who’ve additionally embraced treadmill use.
Teaching with the Wahoo KICKR RUN
Many high athletes in path operating and ultrarunning flip to the Roches for teaching. Roche is a real pupil of the game, claiming that his spouse says that he’s “a bit too interested in every part.” Utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUN has offered a managed setting for Roche to check his theories, together with these involving vitamin, warmth coaching, and extra. He says he’s at all times “eager to reply that query of why, and being so curious and keen on why the physique does what it does, and what it’s able to.”
For Roche, the science behind ultras is fascinating. “Every part from human metabolic buildings to how we dissipate warmth to fatigue resistance, we’re making use of in these nonlinear settings the place it’s not a easy equation. You can’t take somebody right into a lab and predict how they’re going to do in an extremely.” However coaching in a managed setting can positively assist. He says, “For many runners, we have to work out how we are able to optimize the cardio stimulus with the least time potential, but additionally with out breaking down.”
David Roche at Twin Lakes, early on within the 2024 Leadville 100 Mile. Photograph: Cody Naked
Roche believes the Wahoo KICKR RUN can deliver high-level coaching to non-professionals. Whereas most individuals don’t have the time and assets to do full double exercises, Roche says, “Virtually everybody can do an uphill treadmill double, whether or not that’s mountain climbing or operating. And that may assist deliver a extra reasonable coaching concept to individuals who don’t spend their whole lives specializing in operating.”
Along with having his athletes do common uphill treadmill classes, Roche additionally has them follow their fueling in a managed surroundings. He says, “Not solely is it simple logistically, nevertheless it’s additionally a lot simpler on the gastrointestinal system itself.” In relation to taking in additional than 100 grams of carbs per hour, coaching the intestine is vital, and the treadmill removes most of the variables of coaching outdoors from the equation.
Simplicity of the Wahoo KICKR RUN
Roche appreciates the simplicity of the Wahoo KICKR RUN. Whereas it has numerous options, Roche focuses on two: grade and tempo, the one two issues displayed on the console if there’s no laptop computer or pill connected. The shortage of widgets and distracting shows makes it simple to concentrate on operating. “That’s all I need from coaching. Whereas it’s this actually superior machine, you’re feeling such as you’re simply specializing in the work.”
Whereas the Wahoo KICKR RUN has a Run Free mode that robotically adjusts the belt’s velocity based mostly on a runner’s tempo, Roche prefers to manually management the belt velocity. “What’s actually cool in regards to the Wahoo KICKR RUN is that it makes use of the paddles on the aspect. It’s such an intuitive little factor: a little bit slap on the paddles results in a little bit change, like a two-second-per-mile change. You may actually dial it in, so you are able to do mile repeats at 6:24 tempo versus 6:26 tempo at 5%.”
The Wahoo KICKR RUN paddles permit for the micro-adjustability of tempo. Photograph: Wahoo
Roche additionally values the sturdiness of the Wahoo KICKR RUN. “This factor is a tank. It has such an unimaginable engine and is so good at absorbing pressure which you could run at four-minute-mile tempo, and it doesn’t make a sound aside from your footfall. It doesn’t bounce. It doesn’t transfer. It feels identical to outside.”
The upkeep is straightforward. “We acquired our first one again in 2024, have put insane quantities of labor on it, and have by no means touched it.”
Whereas elite athletes could depend on only some options of the Wahoo KICKR RUN to optimize their coaching, others can benefit from a collection of options, together with route simulation, connecting to Zwift and different apps, lateral tilting of the deck for off-camber operating simulation, and connectivity with telephones, tablets, laptops, and TVs for leisure.
Way forward for Treadmills in Working
Roche believes that any runner may gain advantage from common treadmill use, however understands that previous machines rightfully earned the moniker of the “dreadmill.” Roche did his fair proportion of miles on treadmills that he referred to as “bouncy and uncomfortable,” however has come to view the Wahoo KICKR RUN as his operating “security blanket” that he depends on frequently and appears ahead to utilizing.
Working on the Wahoo KICKR RUN in tremendous footwear is one in all his favourite actions. He says, “I don’t wish to overplay age, however at 37, you will have good days, and you’ve got dangerous days. However hardly ever do I really feel like a 20-year-old once more except it’s in tremendous footwear on a treadmill. After which I’m like, ‘Sure, that is the very best factor I’ve ever skilled.’”
David Roche reaches the purple carpet in course document time for the second time in two years, on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photograph: Life Time
Roche believes treadmill coaching is the long run for elite path runners. When incremental enhancements and squeezing each final proportion of efficiency is the secret, the Wahoo KICKR RUN can optimize coaching, and Roche is happy to see what efficiency ceilings it may unlock. “How cool is it to be on the slicing fringe of probably the most wild sudden science experiment on the earth?” asks Roche, who will get to expertise it each as an athlete and a coach. Roche says, “I don’t significantly care what I’m able to. I care what people are able to.” And he thinks that athletes utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUN may have the chance to push limits that runners prior to now would by no means have thought potential.
[Editor’s Note: This article is sponsored by Wahoo Fitness. Thank you to the brand for its sponsorship of iRunFar, which helps to make iRunFar happen and free for all to enjoy. Learn more about our sponsored articles.]
