When David Roche — who is both a successful coach and runner — first started training consistently on a treadmill a few years ago, he had little idea that his life as an athlete or approach to coaching were about to change dramatically. Then in 2024, he broke Matt Carpenter’s 19-year-old Leadville 100 Mile course record by more than 16 minutes. Convinced about the benefits of treadmill training for ultras and tired of using treadmills he didn’t love, he purchased a Wahoo KICKR RUN on the recommendation of other runners. Now a Wahoo Fitness-sponsored athlete, Roche doesn’t try to contain his enthusiasm when recalling his then sticker-price purchase: “I was kind of obsessed immediately. You put this thing down to its maximum four-minute pace, and it doesn’t bounce at all. It doesn’t make any noise.”
David Roche training on his Wahoo KICKR RUN. Photo courtesy of David Roche.
Later that year, Roche went on to win the 2024 Javelina 100 Mile, and in 2025, he reset the Leadville 100 Mile course record by another 14 minutes. Roche is quick to credit the treadmill for his success, saying, “I’m scared to think about how my personal athletic journey might have unfolded because, for the longest time, I was just like, ‘I’m just a coach, and the racing I do is secondary to that.’ Then I started using a treadmill and found high-carb fueling, and all of a sudden, I’m so much better than I thought I could be.”
Roche, who, alongside his wife Megan Roche, coaches top runners including Hans Troyer, Anna Gibson, Tara Dower, and Jess McClain, began incorporating uphill treadmill work into the programming he gave his athletes. He admits, “The treadmill is one of those training tools that I feel a little uncomfortable talking about because I still think it’s one of the only secrets we have left, where our athletes have some advantage still because everybody hasn’t committed to it in the same way we have.”
But according to Roche, a quality treadmill like the Wahoo KICKR RUN isn’t just for the elites: “Where it might have the most benefit of all is for aging athletes. We coach 50-plus-year-old athletes, who, with the treadmill, can do sessions that they might have been able to do when they were 25, and feel like a million bucks the next day.”
It all comes down to how a treadmill like the Wahoo KICKR RUN, with its 15% maximum incline, cushioned deck, and easy adjustability, can take the load off the body while supercharging the aerobic stimulus.
The Wahoo KICKR RUN. Photo: Wahoo
Uphill Treadmill Training Theory
Roche played football in college. He’d never been coached as a runner, so when he got his start in the sport in 2007, he had to learn everything from the ground up. He says, “It was conducive to being really open and having no preconceived notions about how training should work.” He notes, “I had never been on a treadmill. It looked like the worst thing in the world.”
When returning from an injury in 2014 and unable to run on flat ground, he started running uphill on a treadmill at his apartment complex, thinking, It’s better than nothing. He says, “When I came back, my zone 2 paces had improved at the same heart rates.” Puzzled but curious, he prescribed a similar intervention when one of the athletes he was coaching needed to return from an injury. They had the same result.
Roche says, “I started experimenting more and more, to the point that it became a secret weapon for a while for our athletes. Uphill treadmill wasn’t just making them great climbers, it was making them shockingly fast.” According to Roche, uphill treadmill “is a tool where you can accumulate incredibly large amounts of work with very little stress.”
David Roche in the early miles of setting a new men’s course record at the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photo: Life Time
For many runners, running volume before body breakdown and time available for training are their two main limiters. Roche says, “If you put a treadmill at 10% or 12% or 15%, basically you’re going to find that you can run pretty slow paces and be at the very top end of your zone 2. And you’re getting that without the impact of doing that outside, where if you’re pushing that steady moderate zone, you’re just going to get beat up and slow down a little bit.”
Roche believes that using the Wahoo KICKR RUN, with its maximum incline of 15%, can largely replace cross training for adding aerobic volume. “The amount of aerobic stimulus ends up approximating more what cyclists can get, who are much more aerobically fit than runners for the most part. But you get the benefits of running, which you don’t get in cycling.”
Using the Wahoo KICKR RUN also provides a wealth of valuable data that is difficult to collect when running outside, including ground contact time, running cadence, and vertical oscillations. Connecting the KICKR RUN to leading training apps makes it easy to view and understand the data.
Personal Experience With the Wahoo KICKR RUN
According to Roche, what the Wahoo KICKR RUN allowed was for him to “become a grown-ass man aerobically.” He explains that while he’d done plenty of 100-mile weeks in training before, “there is something about getting on a treadmill and running uphill for 90 minutes or two hours, whether that’s steady or these big workouts, that just changed the way my body adapted over time.” He used it to do double workouts, and he says, “I saw, over time, my fitness and the ability to have good fatigue resistance improved.” Leaning into the high-carb nutrition model allowed him to do higher-intensity treadmill workouts. He says the combination of high-carb fueling and the Wahoo KICKR RUN “let me do things at 35 or 36 years old that I would not be able to do outside.”
David Roche proudly accepting the Golden Ticket for his win at the 2024 Javelina 100 Mile. Photo: Cody Bare
Some of his favorite treadmill workouts, including 12 one-mile repeats, wouldn’t be possible outdoors. “I would be so injured so quickly, and just broken down generally, and hating running.” But when he does the workout on the Wahoo KICKR RUN, he says, “I can feel like a million bucks for parenting and work and then another run or bike later in the day.”
Roche’s results throughout 2024 and 2025 speak for themselves, as do those of his athletes who’ve also embraced treadmill use.
Coaching with the Wahoo KICKR RUN
Many top athletes in trail running and ultrarunning turn to the Roches for coaching. Roche is a true student of the sport, claiming that his wife says that he’s “a bit too curious about everything.” Using the Wahoo KICKR RUN has provided a controlled setting for Roche to test his theories, including those involving nutrition, heat training, and more. He says he’s always “wanting to answer that question of why, and being so curious and interested in why the body does what it does, and what it’s capable of.”
For Roche, the science behind ultras is fascinating. “Everything from human metabolic structures to how we dissipate heat to fatigue resistance, we’re applying in these nonlinear settings where it is not a simple equation. You cannot take someone into a lab and predict how they’re going to do in an ultra.” But training in a controlled setting can definitely help. He says, “For most runners, we need to figure out how we can optimize the aerobic stimulus with the least time possible, but also without breaking down.”
David Roche at Twin Lakes, early on in the 2024 Leadville 100 Mile. Photo: Cody Bare
Roche believes the Wahoo KICKR RUN can bring high-level training to non-professionals. While most people don’t have the time and resources to do full double workouts, Roche says, “Almost everyone can do an uphill treadmill double, whether that’s hiking or running. And that will help bring a more realistic training theory to people who don’t spend their entire lives focusing on running.”
In addition to having his athletes do regular uphill treadmill sessions, Roche also has them practice their fueling in a controlled environment. He says, “Not only is it easy logistically, but it’s also so much easier on the gastrointestinal system itself.” When it comes to taking in more than 100 grams of carbs per hour, training the gut is critical, and the treadmill removes many of the variables of training outside from the equation.
Simplicity of the Wahoo KICKR RUN
Roche appreciates the simplicity of the Wahoo KICKR RUN. While it has countless features, Roche focuses on two: grade and pace, the only two things displayed on the console if there’s no laptop or tablet hooked up. The lack of widgets and distracting displays makes it easy to focus on running. “That’s all I want from training. While it’s this really advanced machine, you feel like you’re just focusing on the work.”
While the Wahoo KICKR RUN has a Run Free mode that automatically adjusts the belt’s speed based on a runner’s pace, Roche prefers to manually control the belt speed. “What’s really cool about the Wahoo KICKR RUN is that it uses the paddles on the side. It’s such an intuitive little thing: a little slap on the paddles leads to a little change, like a two-second-per-mile change. You can really dial it in, so you can do mile repeats at 6:24 pace as opposed to 6:26 pace at 5%.”
The Wahoo KICKR RUN paddles allow for the micro-adjustability of pace. Photo: Wahoo
Roche also values the durability of the Wahoo KICKR RUN. “This thing is a tank. It has such an incredible engine and is so good at absorbing force that you can run at four-minute-mile pace, and it does not make a sound other than your footfall. It does not bounce. It does not move. It feels just like outdoors.”
The maintenance is easy. “We got our first one back in 2024, have put insane amounts of work on it, and have never touched it.”
While elite athletes may rely on only a few features of the Wahoo KICKR RUN to optimize their training, others can take advantage of a suite of features, including route simulation, connecting to Zwift and other apps, lateral tilting of the deck for off-camber running simulation, and connectivity with phones, tablets, laptops, and TVs for entertainment.
Future of Treadmills in Running
Roche believes that any runner could benefit from regular treadmill use, but understands that past machines rightfully earned the moniker of the “dreadmill.” Roche did his fair share of miles on treadmills that he called “bouncy and uncomfortable,” but has come to view the Wahoo KICKR RUN as his running “safety blanket” that he relies on regularly and looks forward to using.
Running on the Wahoo KICKR RUN in super shoes is one of his favorite activities. He says, “I don’t want to overplay age, but at 37, you have good days, and you have bad days. But rarely do I feel like a 20-year-old again unless it’s in super shoes on a treadmill. And then I’m like, ‘Yes, this is the best thing I’ve ever experienced.’”
David Roche reaches the red carpet in course record time for the second time in two years, at the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photo: Life Time
Roche believes treadmill training is the future for elite trail runners. When incremental improvements and squeezing every last percentage of performance is the name of the game, the Wahoo KICKR RUN can optimize training, and Roche is excited to see what performance ceilings it can unlock. “How cool is it to be on the cutting edge of the most wild unexpected science experiment in the world?” asks Roche, who gets to experience it both as an athlete and a coach. Roche says, “I don’t particularly care what I’m capable of. I care what humans are capable of.” And he thinks that athletes using the Wahoo KICKR RUN will have the opportunity to push limits that runners in the past would never have thought possible.
[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.]
