Given to Tri: Tech

I needed a way to track my Endless Pool workouts, so I built one

2025-05-27T19:00:00-06:00

I mentioned this briefly in my race report about this year’s Ironman 70.3 St. George, but for the past few weeks I’ve been swimming in an Endless Pool, since the Teton County Rec Center’s lap pool remains, alas, closed for the foreseeable future. It’s been an effective training tool, but one of the annoying things about it is that it’s hard to track my workouts—there are no “laps,” so all I can do is time-based sets, and even then, I have trouble keeping track in my head of how many sets I’ve done, at what pace, and for how long. So, I built myself a little tool to do this: I call it SwimSetter, and it’s a simple web app to keep track of my sets in the Endless Pool.

Using it is easy: Just bring your phone to the pool in a waterproof case, leave it on the side, open the app, set a timer or a stopwatch on your watch, and then just swim. Whenever you stop for a rest, enter how long your last set lasted and at what pace it was, and repeat until you’re done with your workout. The app will add up your total time, distance, and average pace, which you can then enter into a workout log or a manual Strava activity or wherever you want.

It’s a very simple tool that answers a very simple question for me: “Have I swam enough today?” But it might be useful to you too, so here it is.

Runna acquired by Strava

2025-04-17T07:00:00-06:00

Disappointing news. I like Runna—it’s the most TrainerRoad-like running app I’ve used, and Strava is, well… they forbid their customers from disagreeing with their “business decisions” in their community forum, which probably tells you how much they care about their customers’ opinions. In the announcement post on Reddit, Runna’s CEO says they’ll continue to operate independently both as a team and as a product, but nothing in the history of corporate acquisitions makes me think that is anything but temporary. I hope I’m wrong. (Via The Verge.)

RaceRanger used by age groupers for the first time at Challenge Wanaka

2025-02-17T16:40:00-07:00

I’ve been hoping for RaceRanger to make its way down to us age groupers now that it’s proven successful at pro races, so TRI247’s account of how it was used at Challenge Wanaka this past weekend is very encouraging; sounds like it went as smoothly as it could possibly have. I’m looking forward to it, not just for draft enforcement, but also for the possibilities it opens for improved safety, like better live tracking and crash detection. Maybe even crash prevention—imagine if you could pair one of these things to your bike computer and have it work like a Garmin Varia, notifying you when someone is passing you (that’s very pie in the sky, but hey, I can dream).

There’s still a ways to go before it’s ready for widespread usage, but this is solid progress nonetheless.

Automatic treadmill incline control may be coming soon to Zwift

2025-02-13T12:00:00-07:00

According to Zwift Insider, it’s been in testing for a few months now for a small set of Zwift subscribers using the Wahoo Kickr Run treadmill, and now there’s a support article about it. Will they support other smart treadmills, like the Technogym MyRun? Who knows, but Zwift’s response, quoted in Zwift Insider’s article, makes me hopeful that they will. (If anyone at Zwift is reading this, I’d love to beta test that when the time comes.)

TrainerRoad Launches Zwift Integration: Here’s How It Works

2025-02-12T08:00:00-07:00

I’ve been using TrainerRoad for all my cycling training, with great results, since even before I got into triathlons. I love the training plans and all the machine learning magic they apply to them, but doing long workouts indoors while looking at nothing more than a graph and some numbers is mentally challenging, to say the least. Or as a certain cyclist would say: “It builds character.”

There are days when completing a two-hour (or more!) cycling workout indoors requires more mental endurance than I have available, especially in the winter, when I can’t ride outdoors to break the monotony. On those days, even a little bit of distraction helps. Zwift is a good one; I enjoy the visuals and collecting route badges and achievements while exploring Watopia definitely helps pass the time. Over the years I’ve tried the two common ways of using TrainerRoad with Zwift: Either by running them side by side, or by recreating the workouts manually and doing them in Zwift. Both methods work reasonably well, but they’re a bit of a hassle to set up and each comes with their own set of downsides.

About a year ago, though, Zwift announced a new Training Connections API, which enables third-party training platforms to send cycling and running workouts over to Zwift, so that users can do them there. Since that announcement I’ve been waiting with bated breath for TrainerRoad to integrate with it, and it finally launched earlier this week. I was invited to try it out while it was in closed beta, so I’ve had the chance to do about a dozen TrainerRoad workouts in Zwift over the past few weeks; here are a few first impressions, which are overall very positive.

How it works

Just to state the obvious: You’ll need to be a subscriber in both platforms to make this work (although it might work with a lapsed Zwift account if you stay under the monthly 25 km limit). If you are, setting this up is quite simple, all you need to do is go to the Connections page in the TrainerRoad website, hit the “Connect” button under Zwift, log into Zwift, and authorize the connection.

Once this is done, TrainerRoad will push any workouts that you have scheduled for today and tomorrow into Zwift, and today’s workout will show up in the “For You” carousel in Zwift’s Home screen. If you don’t have an active training plan, TrainerRoad will push a recommended workout instead; this is based on TrainerRoad’s TrainNow feature, which uses machine learning to suggest a workout based on your recent training history. The syncing happens automatically: If you put a workout on your calendar, it’ll show up in Zwift almost instantly (or at least quickly enough that it’ll be in Zwift by the time you switch apps). Similarly, if you select an alternate workout, or accept plan adaptations suggested by TrainerRoad’s Adaptive Training system, those changes will be immediately reflected in Zwift. That does mean that if you need to manage your training plan, such as selecting alternates or moving workouts around, you’ll still need to do that on TrainerRoad before opening Zwift, but it all works seamlessly (and TrainerRoad is working to add an option to automatically accept adaptations and FTP adjustments).

With your connection set up, sending TrainerRoad workouts in Zwift is pretty easy. If you have a a workout scheduled for today in your calendar…

Today’s workout: “Bashful -1,” a sixty-minute VO₂ max workout.

…then simply open Zwift…

…select it from either the Home or the Workouts screen, pick a route to do it in, and off you go.

You’ll also get a TrainerRoad kit, which looks 🔥 with the Giro Vanquish helmet and the Fire Socks.

Once you finish the workout, you’ll be presented with a post-workout survey to record your RPE on a scale of 1–10. This gets sent back to TrainerRoad and converted into their 1–5 scale, although you can always update the rating in TrainerRoad afterwards. Then, you can end and save your activity, or keep riding if you want. Once you save the activity, it’ll get synced back to TrainerRoad and any other services you have connected, such as Strava or Garmin Connect.

This ended up mapping to “moderate” in TrainerRoad’s scale.

What happens if you can’t complete the workout for some reason? For example, if it was too hard, or you ran out of time? Then you can go into TrainerRoad and answer the post-workout survey with the reason why. This “struggle survey” may pop up automatically, or if you select “I did not pass” from the regular post-workout survey.

The reason you select may determine how TrainerRoad adapts upcoming workouts. For example, “time” may not trigger adaptations, but “fatigue” or “intensity” might.

What works well

I’ve been testing this integration quite a bit over the past few weeks and it all works pretty great, but there are a handful of things that have sold me on it, although not all of them are specific to TrainerRoad. In no particular order:

The Companion app and controllers are game changers

In TrainerRoad, you can use the on-screen controls to do things like pause the workout, adjust the intensity up and down, or toggle erg mode, but for me, that usually involves reaching over my handlebars or aerobars and tapping a small target on my iPad’s screen with sweaty fingers while I’m fighting for my life. In the past I’ve experimented with things like using a Stream Deck as a TrainerRoad controller, but using the Zwift Companion app on my phone (which I have attached to my Garmin mount using this MagSafe adapter) or the Zwift Click makes it a lot easier to control the workout.

I mostly use them for shifting during free rides, but it’s pretty great to be able to adjust workout intensity right from my aerobars.

I like the arches at the end of every interval

I swear looking at the timer tick down in TrainerRoad during a hard interval only makes it slow down, so I like the way the end of intervals are presented in Zwift as arches that you ride through—somehow I can convince my legs that I can make the interval end sooner if I just pedal harder. I can’t explain why it works, but it does.

Must go faster… must go faster…

TrainerRoad workouts work great as pre-race warmups

I don’t like spinning mindlessly in the pen before a race in Zwift. For one, it’s not enough of a warmup for me, but also it’s not recorded, so I can’t track its training load or anything. I’ve found that short TrainerRoad workouts like “Clyde” (a twenty-minute threshold workout) work great as a warmup, but in the past I’ve had to time them properly to make sure I have enough time to finish it, save it, switch over to Zwift, pair my sensors, and join the event. This integration makes warmups seamless: Now I can simply schedule my warmup in my TrainerRoad calendar, do it in Zwift, and hit the “Join Event” button to teleport to the starting pen whenever I’m ready. The workout gets saved and sent to TrainerRoad automatically, separately from the event I’m doing.

I really didn’t have to do this right after that VO₂ max workout, but I needed the screenshot. Let’s just say that I was well and thoroughly warmed up for the Tour de Zwift Stage 6.

Precise power targets

Until now, workout targets in Zwift were rounded to the nearest 5 W, so if for example an interval called for 248 W, it’d show up as 250 W on the screen. This may not sound like a big deal, but for people with low FTPs, that rounding may be impactful. In any case, if a workout calls for 248 W, dammit, I want to do 248 W. This is a change that has been requested in the Zwift Forums for a few years now, so I’m impressed TrainerRoad convinced Zwift to do it.

Pausing a workout doesn’t stop the recording

I don’t like to pause in the middle of a workout, but sometimes I can’t avoid it (for example, if I get paged at work). If the pause is particularly long, I like to spin for a few minutes before restarting the workout so I can get my heart rate back up, but on TrainerRoad, none of this is recorded while the workout is paused. In Zwift, pausing the workout simply puts you in free ride mode and continues the recording, which helps me track my training load and fatigue more accurately. Once I’m ready, I can restart the workout right from where I left off.

The workout data is out of the way

This is a matter of personal preference, but I do like that all the information about the workout, like upcoming intervals and remaining time, is at the edges of the screen, so I can keep them out of sight if I want to, simply by focusing on my avatar and the scenery. The list of intervals on the left side of the screen has been somewhat divisive in the TrainerRoad Forum because it’s so hard to parse, but I actually like that it’s hard to parse. Sometimes I don’t want to know how much of the workout I have left and it’s much harder to ignore the timers and blue bars on TrainerRoad since they’re front and center.

You can turn off workout instructions

I really don’t like the way Zwift displays workout instructions smack dab in the center of the screen. It’s very obnoxious and distracting, and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like to do Zwift’s built-in workouts, since there’s no way to turn them off in the settings. However, if you turn off workout instructions in TrainerRoad’s settings, they won’t sync over, so they don’t appear in Zwift. Wonderful.

All Zwift activities get synced back to TrainerRoad

While TrainerRoad will only push scheduled cycling workouts to Zwift, once the connection is enabled every activity completed in Zwift, including runs, will be synced back to TrainerRoad. This is a good thing for a couple of reasons: First, it means that all your Zwift activities, including workouts (whether or not they come from TrainerRoad), races, group rides, and free rides, will be analyzed by TrainerRoad and taken into consideration for AI FTP detection and Red Light Green Light fatigue detection; and second, because this removes Strava as a dependency to get all these activities into TrainerRoad, so there’s one less reason to keep it around after their recent policy changes.

What could be better

All that said, there are a few things that I would love to see changed, most of them on Zwift’s side. Again, in no particular order:

Scheduled running workouts don’t sync

TrainerRoad has full triathlon plans that include runs and swims, so I’d love to see the runs sync over to Zwift so I can do them on my treadmill. I don’t expect this to happen anytime soon—those runs are RPE-based, so there’s no target pace to sync over, and I imagine it’d be a big project for TrainerRoad to start tracking or calculating running pace zones (AI FTP but for running would be incredible, though). At least completed Zwift runs do sync back to TrainerRoad, so there’s that.

For now I’ll just continue to recreate these workouts manually in Intervals.icu to sync them to Zwift. I’ve also been told that Zwift integration is coming soon to Runna, which would be even better, even though it’d mean paying for yet another service.

The Kickr Climb doesn’t work during workouts

I bought a Kickr Climb last year and have enjoyed using it during Zwift races and events; I love big climbs, so I like the immersion it adds to my rides. I also like the way it works in TrainerRoad—obviously there’s no terrain to simulate there, so it simply sets the grade based on the percentage of FTP of each interval. I’ve found that the small changes in position from the bike tilt can make a big difference in comfort and engagement during long indoor workouts, so I was disappointed to find out the Climb doesn’t work at all in Zwift during workouts, despite it having been requested for years in the Zwift Forums. I would love if the Kickr Climb continued to follow the terrain in Zwift even in erg mode. In other words, if I’m doing an interval at 200 W and hit a 15% hill, then I want to continue to do 200 W but with the bike tilted 15%.

There’s no way to rewind a workout or repeat an interval

While Zwift makes it easy to skip the current interval if you need to bail out, there’s no way to rewind the workout to repeat an interval. This is something I do in TrainerRoad sometimes—if I have to pause my workout for whatever reason, I try to do so during a recovery interval, but if I have to do it in the middle of a work interval, I like to go back and repeat it. And yep, this is another feature request that goes back years and years, with multiple threads about it on the Zwift Forums.

FTP changes don’t sync between platforms

TrainerRoad workouts done in Zwift are based on the FTP set in TrainerRoad, but TrainerRoad can’t actually update the FTP saved in my Zwift profile, or vice versa. This is mostly a cosmetic issue; having a different FTP in Zwift only affects the power zones in the various graphs, but I still wish I could keep my FTP synced in both platforms whenever one of them detects a change, if nothing else so I don’t have to remember to do it manually.

Erg mode in Zwift is slower to respond

Say what you will about TrainerRoad, but they have erg mode down to a science. Zwift responds slower to changes in power, and it’s very noticeable, particularly in VO₂ max workouts where the difference in power between the work and recovery intervals is usually large. Whereas the power ramps up very quickly in TrainerRoad, I’ve seen it take almost ten seconds in Zwift, and you’ll likely see the “More power!” prompt quite often. It hasn’t really detracted from any of my workouts, but it can be impactful in workouts with short, intense intervals. (On the other hand, a lot of people would argue that you shouldn’t do VO₂ max intervals in erg mode, and at least the Companion app makes it easy to turn it off when necessary.)

Despite these few nitpicks, I think doing TrainerRoad workouts in Zwift is a game changer. It removes most of the friction needed to set it up and I get the best of both worlds: TrainerRoad’s excellent, ML-driven adaptive training plans, with the visuals and gamification of Zwift. It could simply be the novelty of it, but it has made a noticeable difference in my ability to power through long workouts indoors. The VO₂ max workout I used for the screenshots in this post is a good example: It wasn’t particularly tough, just a 3.7 in TrainerRoad’s difficulty scale, but even then I think I would have struggled mentally to complete it in TrainerRoad. My winter blues are pretty rough this year, so I’ll take all the help I can get.

Will I switch completely away from TrainerRoad? Probably not—there’s still a time and place for it, since I’m sure there’ll be times where I’ll want to do something other than Zwift during a workout. But for days when I just need a little visual stimulus, this integration works as well as I could have hoped, and then some—TrainerRoad went above and beyond, even successfully cajoling Zwift into addressing some long-standing feature requests. Not bad at all.

Best Bike Split now integrates directly with Zwift

2024-12-13T06:30:00-07:00

I don’t think it was widely announced except on the Zwift forum, but cool nonetheless, since you can now send Best Bike Split race plans to Zwift as a workout so you can practice your pacing plan there. I’m still waiting for TrainerRoad to ship their own Zwift integration, but I think this fun St. George race simulation will keep me entertained in the meantime.

CORE introduces a new heat adaptation score

2024-07-09T19:20:00-06:00

I’ve had a CORE sensor for a while but my biggest complaint has been that it’s hard to understand and act on the data it shows, so for the most part it’s been sitting in a drawer. That said, I do like this new heat adaptation score the app now shows front and center. It’s nice to have all this data condensed down to an easily digestible metric, and, unlike the heat adaptation metric in Garmin Connect, I can use it to track my indoor heat training. Now let’s see if I can get it to 100% before Ironman Canada.

New Bike Day: Trek Speed Concept SLR 7

2024-06-08T10:00:00-06:00

Today I should be in Colorado, racing Ironman 70.3 Boulder, but as luck would have it, COVID is wreaking havoc in my house this week and I had no choice but to stay home and cancel my race. However, the day I pulled the plug on the race, my sulking was cut short by an excellent piece of good news from Open Range Cycles, my local bike shop in Jackson:

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m finally the proud owner of an actual, honest-to-goodness triathlon bike: a brand new Trek Speed Concept SLR 7, in a customized Project One paint scheme of “Quicksilver” for the frame and “Trek Black” for the logo and lettering.

I went with the middle-of-the-road SLR 7 Ultegra build; the Dura-Ace groupset didn’t seem worth the extra money and I’m used to how Di2 works on my Aethos. However, I had no idea about the Di2 synchronized shifting feature until they mentioned it at the bike shop. Basically, I only need to shift the rear derailleur and it’ll shift the front one for me once I shift past the middle of the cassette, so I can do all my shifting without coming off of the aerobars. It sounds sick, but I’ll have to test it and see how well it works in practice. If it does work well, I’ll have to see if I can turn this on in my Aethos too.

I swapped the aero bottle it came with with regular bottle cages and also mounted one between the aerobars—I hate leaky torpedo bottles, so I’d rather sacrifice a few watts to be able to swap regular bottles at aid stations and special needs. That should be more than enough for a 70.3, but I can add two more bottles behind the saddle on an XLAB Super Wing for a full Ironman.

I’m sticking with the Bontrager Aeolus Pro 51 wheelset it came with for now, although I’m going to switch to tubeless tires as soon as possible (the Bontrager R3 tires confusingly aren’t tubeless-ready despite having some “TR” in their branding). The bike comes with a handy storage compartment in the downtube for a flat kit, including a spare tube, but it’d require removing the bottle cage, so I’d rather not have to use it unless I absolutely have to; the built-in bento box on the top tube has much easier access and more than enough space for a CO₂ canister, inflator and DynaPlug. For power meters, I’m using Favero Assioma Duo pedals, widely regarded as some of the best power meters you can buy. Mine have worked great so far on my Aethos, so I got a second pair for this bike.

One thing I forgot to order was the computer mount, so I’ll have to add that later, but other than that, it’s pretty much stock.

Because I am a huge dork, I’ve nicknamed my new bike Shadowfax, after the Lord of the Mearas and Gandalf’s steed in The Lord of the Rings:

“True indeed!” said Gandalf. “And there is one among them that might have been foaled in the morning of the world. The horses of the Nine cannot vie with him; tireless, swift as the flowing wind. Shadowfax they called him. By day his coat glistens like silver; and by night it is like a shade, and he passes unseen. Light is his footfall! Never before had any man mounted him, but I took him and I tamed him, and so speedily he bore me that I reached the Shire when Frodo was on the Barrow-downs, though I set out from Rohan only when he set out from Hobbiton.”

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter II: “The Council of Elrond.”

Perhaps I should retroactively nickname my Aethos Legolas or something, in keeping with the Tolkien theme. Anyway, without further ado, here’s a bunch of photos.

A huge thank you to the fine folks at Open Range Cycles for their help ordering and building this bike for me. I cannot wait to take it to Ironman 70.3 Coeur d’Alene in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime I’m going to spend some time putting it through its paces on my local bike paths and getting my fit dialed it. Run, Shadowfax, show us the meaning of haste.

Review: Technogym MyRun

2023-02-10T08:00:00-06:00

Last fall I started shopping for a treadmill so I could continue training over the winter for the races I have scheduled this year (Ironman 70.3 St. George in May, Ironman Coeur d’Alene in June, and Echo Triathlon in July), and after much consideration, I settled on the $3,750 Technogym MyRun. I don’t usually write reviews of things I buy, but while researching treadmills, I didn’t see many reviews of this particular model, so I thought it’d be worthwhile to share my experience with it, if nothing else as a cautionary tale for others who might be considering buying one.

TL;DR: It’s an awesome treadmill backed by an excellent iPad app, but unfortunately marred by Technogym’s abysmal customer support, which makes it hard to recommend.

As you can see out the window, I really needed a treadmill to continue training over the winter.

Why the MyRun?

There were a few things I was looking for in a home treadmill:

I don’t have a ton of space left for workout equipment in my home office/fitness room, so I needed something compact. I didn’t want something with the Starship Enterprise viewscreen in front of it, or an overbearing console full of crap I don’t need, such as puny fans and tinny speakers. I also ruled out non-motorized treadmills like the Assault Runner, which are large and heavy. The ability to fold it was a nice-to-have, but not a requirement, since it doesn’t seem to save that much space in most cases (I think it’s mostly useful for vacuuming under the treadmill.)
I needed something with a durable motor. Based on my research, for the type of training I do, with lots of intervals and long endurance runs, I needed a treadmill with at least a 3 hp motor.
I wanted something that didn’t require a lot of maintenance. A lot of the cheaper treadmills require lubricating the belt at regular intervals, and with the amount of running I do, I knew I’d get frustrated with that very rapidly.
I get bored very quickly on a treadmill, so support for Bluetooth FTMS for Zwift integration would be welcome. This was a nice-to-have, not a hard requirement, since there are other ways to use Zwift with a treadmill.
I did not want to get locked into any subscription services, which ruled out things like NordicTrack and Peloton treadmills.
I didn’t have a specific budget in mind. I wasn’t planning to spend $14,000 on a Woodway (as much as I’d love to have one), but in general I’m happy to pay more for a good product that does what I need and lasts a long time. I’m a firm believer in “buy once, cry once.”
Warranty and support were also considerations, but those are harder to gauge. Most treadmill manufacturers offer similar warranties, but how they’d respond when things break is hard to figure out ahead of time (as I learned the hard way).

Based on that criteria, I narrowed my search down to a few choices:

Echelon Stride: It’s very compact, folds down, and I love the minimal console. However, it has a weaker 1.75 hp motor. Reviews seemed to indicate it’s more suitable for walking, and wouldn’t be durable enough for long and/or fast runs.
LifeSpan TR5500i: It’s compact, folding, and has a powerful 4 hp motor, but the UI seems kind of crappy, lacks Bluetooth FTMS, and the belt requires maintenance.
Sole F85: It’s folding, has a powerful 4 hp motor, and Bluetooth FTMS, but has a big, ugly, cheap-looking console, requires belt maintenance, and folks on the /r/treadmills subreddit seem to really dislike Sole.
Xterra TRX5500: it’s folding, has a 3.25 hp motor, and Bluetooth FTMS, but requires belt maintenance, and looks straight out of the nineties.
Horizon T303: It’s folding, has a strong motor, and Bluetooth FTMS, but requires belt maintenance, and has a large console, although it’s the least offensive-looking of the bunch.
Precor TRM 223: It’s not folding or in any way “smart,” but it has a decent 3 hp motor and a maintenance-free belt. I considered Precor treadmills because I read great things about their reliability and durability, although I’ve also read concerns about Precor’s future since they got acquired by Peloton.
Technogym MyRun: It’s not folding, but it’s very compact, has a decent 3 hp motor, a maintenance-free belt, and lots of “smart” features, although it’s more expensive than the others.

After much hemming and hawing, I discarded the ones that require frequent belt maintenance and have oversized consoles, and narrowed it down to the Precor and the Technogym. Despite costing almost twice as much, I settled on the Technogym because it’s more compact, it’s easier to move (it has wheels, the Precor does not), and has the smart features I thought I would enjoy. The uncertainty around Precor’s warranty and support after Peloton’s acquisition and subsequent financial issues gave me pause as well; I thought the Technogym would be a safer buy in that regard, especially considering the price—I was wrong, but I’ll come back to this later on.

Buying & delivery experience

I ordered the treadmill online from Technogym’s website in early November. A customer support representative emailed me a couple days later to confirm my address, get some details about the location (such as the presence of stairs and such), and let me know that there’d be a lead time of 3-4 weeks for delivery.

The “white glove” delivery took a little longer than that, which didn’t surprise me since it was the holiday season, and happened at the end of December. Scheduling the delivery was easily done online, and two men drove a truck from Salt Lake City to deliver the treadmill, arriving exactly when they said they would. They unpacked the treadmill outside my apartment, carried it inside, and set it up. The entire process took about 30 minutes in total, and setting up the treadmill itself took maybe 10 minutes, tops. They took all the packing materials with them, wore masks and shoe covers the entire time, and left my place immaculate, which I appreciated.

Assembling it was a matter of unfolding and locking the console in the upright position, attaching the handrails and bottle holders, and plugging it in. They mentioned it was the first MyRun they had ever delivered, and seemed impressed by how easy it was to set up; they said they’re used to delivering NordicTracks, which are much harder to assemble. An unexpected benefit I hadn’t considered is that if I ever move, it would be easy to reverse the process and pack the treadmill.

GPLama has a good video demonstrating the setup process:

Using the treadmill

Using this treadmill is extraordinarily simple—it’s always in a low-power sleep mode, and wakes up as soon as you step on it. It has three buttons: the middle button starts and stops a run, or pauses it if you long-press it; the left paddle button changes the incline; and the right paddle button changes the speed. There are a couple of settings you access by pressing the middle and speed button simultaneously, to change between imperial and metric units, and between speed and pace on the display. The display itself shows time, incline, speed or pace, distance, and Bluetooth status. Additionally, the console has an emergency stop cord you clip to your clothes, a shelf at the front for a phone or tablet with a rubber grip to hold them in place, a retractable tablet stand at the top, and a USB-A port in the back to power your phone or tablet. Finally, there’s a power switch at the front of the deck, next to the power cable, in case you want to turn it off completely.

Say what you will about this treadmill, it is beautifully designed. I love the minimalism of its display.

That’s it, that’s all there is to it. Step on it, press the middle button, and start running.

Running experience

I’m not a treadmill expert, but I have no complaints here at all. It has a max speed of 20 km/h, and responds to changes quickly—when doing intervals I can go from 10 km/h to 16 km/h in about 8 seconds, and vice versa. The incline goes up to 12%, and it doesn’t decline at all—that’s fine by me, I rarely change the incline anyway.

The motor has no problem keeping up with me, and I can’t feel the belt slipping, sticking, or slowing down at all, even on an all-out sprint. So far it’s been able to handle everything I’ve thrown at it without issues, including workouts with lots of fast intervals, and long endurance workouts, the longest of which has been 2.5 hours.

Comparing it to the commercial treadmills I’ve used at the gym nearby, I feel like it has less cushioning, but I’ve been able to do long endurance runs without any pain or discomfort. I haven’t measured the noise, but it’s definitely quieter than those other treadmills (at least my neighbors have yet to complain about it). However, I’ve noticed that stuff in the room tends to move around when I’m running; I might need to get a mat to put under the treadmill to dampen some of the vibrations.

The treadmill itself is solidly built. Nothing about it feels flimsy or loose, and I don’t hear any squeaking, creaking, or rattling when I’m running. It’s just a simple, elegant, good-looking piece of equipment. The belt feels pretty thick, and as you can see in the photo below, it’s very grippy.

The belt is robust, with a substantial grip.

The running surface is 143×50 cm, which is a little smaller than other treadmills, but I’m 1.71 m tall, so I’ve never felt like I didn’t have enough space to run. The deck is just 15 cm off the floor, so it’s easy to step on and off.

The Technogym Live app

While the minimalism of the MyRun’s console and controls might seem limiting, using it with the Technogym Live app on a tablet is when it really shines. Although I haven’t used some of its features, such as the coach-guided, Peloton-like “Sessions,” which require a paid subscription, the app includes a large variety of recorded outdoor runs, preset workouts, and a myriad ways to set up custom workouts on the treadmill, all of which are available for free.

The main screen of the Technogym Live app.

You can set up completely custom workouts with varying speeds and inclines, and even better, import them from TrainingPeaks. The app is able to control the treadmill, so once you start your workout, it’s essentially “set it and forget it,” although you are still able to tweak the speed and incline with the hardware buttons.

You can set up a completely custom workout from scratch from within the app…

…or import one from TrainingPeaks (although as far as I can tell there’s no way to set the incline in TrainingPeaks).

Other workout options include:

Time goal
Distance goal
Calories goal
Constant heart rate, which automatically adjusts intensity to keep you at that heart rate
Weight loss, which automatically adjusts intensity for increased fat burning
Training zone, which automatically adjusts intensity to stay within a specific heart rate zone
High-low blocks, which is sort of like interval training, I suppose, with various levels of intensity, from 1-25
Hill intervals, with smoother changes in intensity, and levels from 1-25
Speed shift, which lets you preset up to four speeds and toggle between them with the speed button

Once you decide what you want to do, you simply place the tablet in its holder, start the workout, and hit the center button on the console to get moving. One quirk about the Technogym Live app is that you must put the tablet on the holder to use it; it has an optical sensor that detects if the tablet is placed there, and will not let you start a workout from the app otherwise. What I really don’t like about this is that if you move the tablet, the treadmill will stop, show an obscure HF 701 error code, and end your workout. I suppose it’s trying to stop you from potentially hurting yourself if you trip while messing with the tablet, but it should pause the workout, not end it altogether. What’s worse, the sensor is so sensitive, it’s possible to trigger this simply by tapping on the tablet. I’ve had a couple workouts abruptly end that way, and it’s so infuriating I ended up covering the sensor with gaffer’s tape.

If you haven’t done this by the time the countdown runs out, it goes back to the main screen of the app.

When a run is in progress, the app shows a pretty detailed dashboard that includes time, pace, calories, cadence, stride length, and heart rate, which you can get from a paired Bluetooth heart rate monitor or an Apple Watch. You can also swipe to the right to see charts for pace, incline, and heart rate; and to the left to see a “swiftpad” with eight configurable buttons for preset speeds and inclines (four of each). The swiftpad is not available during structured workouts, though, only on open runs; I wish it was always available, and I’d also love to have a number pad of some sort to be able to dial in specific speeds or inclines.

Most of the widgets on the dashboard have alternate views that you can swipe through.

This is my favorite view when doing a structured workout. It lets you see upcoming changes in pace.

You can customize the swiftpad with various speeds and inclines of your choosing, but it’s only present during open runs, not structured workouts.

After finishing a workout, you get a nice summary screen with metrics and graphs. I wish I had the option to continue running, though, since sometimes I have some gas left in the tank, but the treadmill simply stops once you complete a workout.

I have no idea what MOVEs are.

The app includes a built-in music player, and Spotify and Apple Music integration, with some custom playlists put together by Technogym. I haven’t used this very much; the buttons are tiny, so I prefer to use my phone to control my music.

Controlling music within the app is neat, but I wish the controls were bigger.

On an iPad, you can set up Siri for voice commands to start and stop workouts or change the speed and incline, although it works better in theory than in practice—good luck getting Siri to understand you over the sound of the treadmill while you’re huffing and puffing; and just like the swiftpad, it doesn’t work during structured workouts. Interestingly, these actions are available in the Shortcuts app, which is cool. For example, you could set up a shortcut that increases your speed and turns on a fan on a smart plug.

This is nice to have—if you can get Siri to understand you.

The app works perfectly in the background on an iPad. It’ll show a push notification about 10 seconds before any change in speed or incline, so you can start a workout and then switch to Netflix or some other app without being caught off guard by changes in the workout. I wish it supported split view, though; you can’t have the app open side-by-side with something else.

You can connect the Technogym Live app to Strava, Garmin, TrainingPeaks, RunKeeper, and MapMyFitness. Connecting to Strava lets you simulate routes on the treadmill, and sync completed runs. Connecting to TrainingPeaks lets you import your planned workout of the day, and sync completed runs. Connecting to Garmin doesn’t seem to do anything as far as I can tell. (I don’t use RunKeeper or MapMyFitness, so I didn’t test them.)

While the pace reported by the treadmill is likely more accurate than what my watch (a Garmin Forerunner 955) estimates, I still prefer recording my runs on my watch because it calculates metrics like running power and training effect, so I ended up disconnecting Strava and Garmin from the app. However, I left the TrainingPeaks connection in place; being able to set up my workouts in TrainingPeaks ahead of time, sync them to the treadmill, and do them without me having to control the treadmill at all is so, so, so good, I don’t know how I ever trained without it. I find myself nailing workouts in a way I never have on other treadmills: on workouts with lots of fast intervals, if I’m not controlling the treadmill manually, I’m less likely to “cheat” by turning down the speed before the interval is over; and in long endurance runs, being able to break them up into chunks at varying paces (a similar structure as endurance rides on TrainerRoad), helps make them far more tolerable. Technogym Live’s TrainingPeaks integration makes it painlessly easy to set this up.

I’ve noticed a couple minor bugs with the app: the “high heart rate” alert keeps popping up even though I turned if off in the settings; and there seems to be a timezone issue importing TrainingPeaks workouts—past a certain time, importing a workout pulls the next day’s workout, not the one scheduled for that day. That said, I’m impressed with the level of polish of this app, and the sheer customizability it enables on the treadmill. I’m not exaggerating when I say it has made a real difference in my training.

Zwift

While there’s no integration between the Technogym Live app and Zwift, you can pair the treadmill directly to Zwift. Zwift recognizes the treadmill as both a speed and cadence sensor, and it only takes a few seconds to set things up for a run. The treadmill only supports a single Bluetooth connection, though, so you can only connect it to one app at a time.

It’s easy to connect the treadmill to Zwift—just make sure it’s not already connected to something else.

Unfortunately, unlike the Technogym Live app, Zwift is not able to control the treadmill, so you have to do it manually, following the prompts given by Zwift. My understanding is that there is far less standardization in the industry for controlling treadmills than there is for bike trainers, so I don’t think either Technogym nor Zwift are to blame here, and I believe this is also the way other treadmills with Bluetooth FTMS work. Hopefully this is something that can be added through a software update in the future, but I do wish the treadmill supported more than one Bluetooth connection, so I could at least let Technogym Live control it in the background while using Zwift. It feels silly to get a Runn sensor for a treadmill that can already connect to Zwift, but I may end up getting one just so I can use both apps at the same time.

Another quirk of the treadmill is that the speed it reports over Bluetooth is not the actual measured speed of the belt, but the speed the treadmill is set to, so speed changes appear instantaneous instead of reflecting reality, which is that it takes a few seconds to arrive at the selected speed. This makes pace graphs in Zwift and Strava somewhat odd, since it looks like I jumped from, say, 10 km/h to 16 km/h during intervals instantaneously instead of ramping up to speed.

Update, April 10th, 2023: I ended up putting a Runn sensor on the treadmill after all. It works pretty well and now I can use both apps at the same time without any problems, which is nice. It also confirmed that the treadmill’s speed is fairly accurate, with the belt moving within 0.2 km/h of what it’s set to (and I do like that Zwift now accurately records the actual speed of the belt instead of just the setting).

Note the instruction to “run at 12 km/h for 15 minutes.” It’s up to you to follow it, but Zwift does a good job of getting your attention when you need to change speed.

Unlike in Technogym Live, you can dismiss the report when a workout is finished, and continue running.

I’m not going to do a full review of Zwift running, but I’ll just say it’s fine. Compared to Technogym Live, it’s not the game-changer I thought it would be for training, especially since it can’t control the treadmill. It’s fun when I need a bit of a change in (virtual) scenery, though.

Customer support

This is where things have gone sideways with Technogym. A month after taking delivery of the treadmill, I started having a serious issue with it: it randomly shuts down whenever I use the speed or incline buttons.

Here’s a video demonstrating the issue:

I’ve done a ton of troubleshooting on this thing and reached some conclusions:

It’s not a power issue. The power cord is firmly plugged in, and the treadmill is on a 15 amp circuit, which is what Technogym recommends. The breaker doesn’t trip when the problem happens, and everything worked well for the first few weeks of use; a power issue would have been apparent from the moment I got the treadmill.
The treadmill works properly as long as I don’t use the buttons. I’ve done runs of up to 2.5 hours continuously without the treadmill stopping, as long as I don’t touch them.
The treadmill works properly if the Technogym Live app is controlling the speed or incline. If I set up a custom workout with varying speeds, or import one from TrainingPeaks, or use the swiftpad or Siri to change the speed or incline, everything works fine. It only stops when I change speeds or incline with the hardware buttons.

That leads me to believe it’s most likely a hardware problem, perhaps some faulty connection somewhere that loosened with the impact of my running over the course of a few weeks, and now causes the treadmill to randomly crash when the buttons are pressed. It’s also possible it’s a software bug—the treadmill got a firmware update a few days before the problem started. Firmware updates are handled by the Technogym Live app, but it happens silently and automatically—there’s no way to check for updates, and as far as I can tell, there are no release notes, or a public changelog, or a way to see which firmware version it has or when it was installed, so I can’t check if the timing of that update lines up with when I started experiencing the problem.

In any case, sometimes things break, sometimes you just get a lemon. It happens, I get it. What matters to me is how companies respond—when I got my indoor bike, a StagesBike SB20, it shipped with a dead power meter, but I contacted Stages, and a couple of days later they overnighted me a new crank with detailed instructions to replace it, and gave me a workaround so I could still use the bike in the meantime. A few months later, my cat chewed on the power cable, and again, Stages immediately shipped me a new one under warranty. Stages customer support has consistently been responsive and excellent.

In contrast, I’m sorry to report that Technogym’s customer support has been abysmal so far. There’s no public customer support email, or a support portal where I can create a ticket; messages sent through the generic contact form on the website go unanswered, and calling the phone number results in long waits on hold (there is a contact option using Whatsapp, of all things, but I do not have Whatsapp). I even tried emailing the customer support rep that reached out when I placed the order to see if she could put me in touch with someone who could help me; she never replied. I eventually managed to reach someone on the phone, an extremely curt person who made no attempt to troubleshoot or gather details about my issue, and did no more than ask for the serial number and start a work order with “MYRUN SHUTTING DOWN” as the entire, verbatim description of the problem. When technical support finally emailed me, their only suggestion was that “the power cord may not be properly inserted,” with a diagram in case I didn’t know how to plug in a cable.

That’s the last I’ve heard from Technogym. I replied with a full description of the problem and the video above, and never got a response. After two weeks, and multiple follow-up emails without a response, I’m nowhere near close to a resolution. I don’t know if or when they’re going to repair or replace my treadmill, so my hope is that it is a software issue, and a future update somehow fixes it.

At least the treadmill still runs, and although I am limited in what I can do without using the buttons (Zwift is out of the question, for example), I can still train as long as I set up my workouts in advance in TrainingPeaks. But come on, this is an absurdly bad level of customer support. At this point I’m inclined to return the treadmill just so I never have to deal with Technogym ever again, but I’m not sure how I would even go about initiating a return when they’re so unresponsive.

Update, March 14th, 2023: After a month and a half of no response whatsoever to my emails, I ended up sending an actual written letter by certified mail to Technogym HQ in New Jersey, basically giving them 30 days to resolve my issue before I sought legal remedy, and I got a call back the same day it was delivered. The person I talked to was very apologetic for the delay, and promised to send a technician as soon as possible to determine if the treadmill could be repaired, or they’d replace it. The next day I got a call from Fitness Machine Technicians, out of Salt Lake City, to schedule a visit from the technician. We’ll see how it shakes out, but this feels like progress at last.

Update, March 21st, 2023: Just got a visit from the technician. He replaced the control board and the console, and lubricated the belt in case it was a friction issue, but the malfunction still persists, unfortunately. He thinks the problem is the buttons themselves or the harness that connects them to the console, so he’d have to order those parts and come back. Technogym told me they would replace the treadmill if the technician wasn’t able to fix it, so I hope that’s the next—and final—step in this saga.

Update, April 17th, 2023: It’s been almost a month since I had the visit from the technician and I haven’t heard a word from Technogym, despite multiple requests for an update. Today, I got this:

Here’s some feedback, Technogym: how about you fix my fucking treadmill before you ask about my “satisfaction.” Unbelievable.

Update, April 20th, 2023: Two technicians from Fitness Machines came over today, and replaced the buttons and harness; the treadmill appears to be in working order now. They explained that it took them a while to come back because Technogym had to ship the parts from Italy. Now, why couldn’t Technogym just say that at any point in the past month, perhaps as a reply to one of the many emails I sent asking for an update? I’m not upset that the treadmill started malfunctioning after only a month, I’m not even upset that it took three months to get it repaired, I’m upset by how bad Technogym’s communication has been through this whole process. This is far and away the worst customer support experience I’ve had in my entire life, and now I’m at a crossroads with this treadmill—it seems to work, and I genuinely like it, but the last thing I want is to have to go through this ordeal if it breaks again in the future. I’m wondering if I should sell it, even if I have to take a loss on it, and get something else.

Update, April 21st, 2023: I got a nice email from someone at Technogym Italy this morning. He was very apologetic about the poor communication from Technogym USA, was glad to hear the treadmill was fixed, and said he was going to follow up with them to figure out the cause of the delays and miscommunication. I thanked him for reaching out, and thought that was the end of this journey.

I was wrong. A few hours later, I got a separate email from Technogym USA to let me know that they’re working on my “MyRun extraction and refund.” In the letter I sent to their HQ in New Jersey I said that repairing, replacing, or returning the treadmill were all acceptable outcomes for me, so after having the treadmill repaired, and confirming it worked, I considered the matter closed. So I don’t understand why, literally a day after having the treadmill repaired, they’re now working on a return and refund I didn’t ask for. I thought about telling them a return wasn’t necessary now that the treadmill is fixed, but I’m so fed up, I just replied “great, keep me posted.” I’ll start shopping for a new treadmill if and when they follow through with this return. I don’t believe for a second that they will, though.

This is officially the most deranged customer support experience I’ve ever encountered.

Update, May 10th, 2023: They’ve ghosted me once again, so I don’t think this return is happening.

At least the treadmill works correctly again, so this is, as far as I’m concerned, the end of this saga.

Conclusion

Pros

Compact, elegant, and easy to use
Easy to assemble and disassemble
Pretty much maintenance-free
Powerful enough motor for long, hard runs
Highly programmable; the Technogym Live app is excellent and TrainingPeaks integration is a game-changer for me
Zwift running is fun

Cons

Expensive
Zwift can’t control the treadmill
Only one Bluetooth connection; can’t use Zwift and Technogym Live at the same time
Developed a pretty serious issue in just a month
Technogym customer support is bad, and they should feel bad

So, is this thing worth almost $4,000? I’d really love to be able to say “hey, if you can afford it, you won’t regret it,” because I love the treadmill itself. It’s pricy, but exactly what I wanted: an elegant, compact, low-maintenance, highly-programmable treadmill on which I can do long, hard structured workouts and connect to Zwift. However, taking into account the problems I’ve had with it, and in particular my experience with Technogym’s customer support, I just can’t recommend it. For this amount of money, you’re just taking too big of a gamble with Technogym.

If, after reading this, you’re still considering this treadmill, my advice would be proceed with caution. Call Technogym, and inquire about what level of support they can provide and who provides servicing in your area, and then call that company and make sure you feel confident you’ll get the necessary assistance if you ever need it. Then, you can make an informed decision. This is probably a good thing to do, no matter what brand you’re considering. In hindsight, it’s what I should have done—it might have saved me a lot of grief.