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 strategy to teaching had been about to alter dramatically. Then in 2024, he broke Matt Carpenter’s 19-year-old Leadville 100 Mile course file 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 place this factor right down to its most four-minute tempo, and it doesn’t bounce in any respect. It doesn’t make any noise.”
David Roche coaching on his Wahoo KICKR RUN. Picture courtesy of David Roche.
Later that yr, Roche went on to win the 2024 Javelina 100 Mileand in 2025, he reset the Leadville 100 Mile course file 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 unexpectedly, I’m so significantly better than I assumed I might be.”
Roche, who, alongside his spouse Megan Rochecoaches prime runners together with Hans Troyer, Anna Gibson, Tara Dowerand Jess McClainstarted 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 somewhat uncomfortable speaking about as a result of I nonetheless assume it’s one of many solely secrets and techniques we’ve left, the place our athletes have some benefit nonetheless as a result of all people hasn’t dedicated to it in the identical approach we’ve.”
However in line with 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 advantage of 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 following 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 simple adjustability, can take the load off the physique whereas supercharging the cardio stimulus.
The Wahoo KICKR RUN. Picture: Wahoo
Uphill Treadmill Coaching Principle
Roche performed soccer in faculty. He’d by no means been coached as a runner, so when he received his begin within the sport in 2007, he needed to be taught all the pieces 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 seemed just like the worst factor on the earth.”
When getting back from an damage in 2014 and unable to run on flat floor, he began working uphill on a treadmill at his residence complicated, considering, 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 the same intervention when one of many athletes he was teaching wanted to return from an damage. They’d the identical consequence.
Roche says, “I began experimenting increasingly, 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.” Based on Roche, uphill treadmill “is a software the place you may accumulate extremely massive quantities of labor with little or no stress.”
David Roche within the early miles of setting a brand new males’s course file on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Picture: Life Time
For a lot of runners, working quantity earlier than physique breakdown and time out there for coaching are their two fundamental limiters. Roche says, “Should you put a treadmill at 10% or 12% or 15%, principally you’re going to seek out you could run fairly gradual paces and be on the very prime finish of your zone 2. And also you’re getting that with out the influence of doing that exterior, the place should you’re pushing that regular reasonable zone, you’re simply going to get beat up and decelerate somewhat bit.”
Roche believes that utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUNwith 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 rather more aerobically match than runners for probably the most half. However you get the advantages of working, which you don’t get in biking.”
Utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUN additionally offers a wealth of helpful information that’s troublesome to gather when working exterior, together with floor contact time, working cadence, and vertical oscillations. Connecting the KICKR RUN to main coaching apps makes it straightforward to view and perceive the information.
Private Expertise With the Wahoo KICKR RUN
Based on Roche, what the Wahoo KICKR RUN allowed was for him to “develop into a grown-ass man aerobically.” He explains that whereas he’d carried out loads of 100-mile weeks in coaching earlier than, “there’s something about getting on a treadmill and working uphill for 90 minutes or two hours, whether or not that’s regular or these massive exercises, that simply modified the best way my physique tailored over time.” He used it to do double exercises, and he says, “I noticed, over time, my health and the power to have good fatigue resistance improved.” Leaning into the high-carb diet mannequin allowed him to do higher-intensity treadmill exercises. He says the mixture of high-carb fueling and the Wahoo KICKR RUN “let me do issues at 35 or 36 years outdated that I’d not be capable of do exterior.”
David Roche proudly accepting the Golden Ticket for his win on the 2024 Javelina 100 Mile. Picture: Cody Naked
A few of his favourite treadmill exercises, together with 12 one-mile repeats, wouldn’t be doable outside. “I’d be so injured so rapidly, and simply damaged down typically, and hating working.” 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 converse for themselves, as do these of his athletes who’ve additionally embraced treadmill use.
Teaching with the Wahoo KICKR RUN
Many prime athletes in path working and ultrarunning flip to the Roches for teaching. Roche is a real scholar of the game, claiming that his spouse says that he’s “a bit too inquisitive about all the pieces.” Utilizing the Wahoo KICKR RUN has offered a managed setting for Roche to check his theories, together with these involving diet, warmth coaching, and extra. He says he’s all the time “desirous 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 isn’t 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 determine how we will optimize the cardio stimulus with the least time doable, but in addition with out breaking down.”
David Roche at Twin Lakes, early on within the 2024 Leadville 100 Mile. Picture: Cody Naked
Roche believes the Wahoo KICKR RUN can convey 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 mountaineering or working. And that may assist convey a extra reasonable coaching concept to individuals who don’t spend their whole lives specializing in working.”
Along with having his athletes do common uphill treadmill classes, Roche additionally has them apply their fueling in a managed atmosphere. He says, “Not solely is it straightforward logistically, however it’s additionally a lot simpler on the gastrointestinal system itself.” In the case of taking in additional than 100 grams of carbs per hour, coaching the intestine is important, and the treadmill removes lots of the variables of coaching exterior 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 straightforward to concentrate on working. “That’s all I would like 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 routinely adjusts the belt’s pace primarily based on a runner’s tempo, Roche prefers to manually management the belt pace. “What’s actually cool concerning the Wahoo KICKR RUN is that it makes use of the paddles on the aspect. It’s such an intuitive little factor: somewhat slap on the paddles results in somewhat change, like a two-second-per-mile change. You’ll be able to 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 enable for the micro-adjustability of tempo. Picture: Wahoo
Roche additionally values the sturdiness of the Wahoo KICKR RUN. “This factor is a tank. It has such an unbelievable engine and is so good at absorbing drive 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 received 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 make the most of a collection of options, together with route simulation, connecting to Zwift and different apps, lateral tilting of the deck for off-camber working simulation, and connectivity with telephones, tablets, laptops, and TVs for leisure.
Way forward for Treadmills in Operating
Roche believes that any runner may benefit 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 working “security blanket” that he depends on repeatedly and appears ahead to utilizing.
Operating on the Wahoo KICKR RUN in tremendous sneakers is one in every of his favourite actions. He says, “I don’t need to overplay age, however at 37, you’ve got good days, and you’ve got unhealthy days. However not often do I really feel like a 20-year-old once more except it’s in tremendous sneakers on a treadmill. After which I’m like, ‘Sure, that is the perfect factor I’ve ever skilled.’”
David Roche reaches the pink carpet in course file time for the second time in two years, on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Picture: 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 chopping fringe of probably the most wild surprising 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 doable.
(Editor’s Word: This text is sponsored by Wahoo Health. Thanks to the model for its sponsorship of iRunFar, which helps to make iRunFar occur and free for all to get pleasure from. Be taught extra about our sponsored articles.)
