Shaky

I hit the treadmill at the hotel the other day since I was really in a hurry in the morning. It was a modern LifeFitness model, the ones that often have the TV attached (this one didn't), and I was surprised by how shaky the treadmill was. If I ran in the middle, it shook audibly, and visibly, making it hard to hear the TV and unnerving me a bit.

I started running at 2.0 incline, but backed that down. I even went to 0 and it was better, but still shaky. I noticed that the left side was much worse, and if I slid to the right a bit, essentially running right of center with both legs, it shook much less.

I did that, and worried because occasionally my shoes would squeak on the side of the treadmill as they hit the deck. Eventually I was close to center, just enduring the shaking. It was an annoying and hard run, making me wish I'd gotten up 30 minutes earlier and gone outside.

I miss subtitles

I got a new blu-ray player for the treadmill recently and I’ve been using it to stream Netflix movies and TV shows. I run when the weather is bad, or windy outside since the wind kills my eyes. And I probably end up with more runs inside than out, so having some entertainment is nice.
However the Netflix app for the DVD player doesn’t include subtitles.
Grrrr
I’ve been used to running with subtitles for a couple years, and depend on them sometimes to understand what’s going on. When I get up to close to 7mph, the treadmill is loud and it’s hard to hear at times.
So far the Heros: Season 2 I’ve been watching isn’t bad, but I worry about some other movies. I’m sending a request in to Netflix to get that fixed ASAP.

True Excel Treadmill

In Orlando I was at a very nice resort, actually a Marriot complex that had a Marriot and Ritz sharing the same grounds and fitness center. It reminded me of some of the high end centers in Vegas or the Caribbean with lots of amenities.

The treadmills they they had there were True ES 900 treadmills, and they were nice. Large screens, a big, heavy machine that dwarfed me and my treadmill at home. I could probably fit my treadmill (Reebok ES900) on the True treadmill easily.

Being at sea level, I expected the treadmill to feel easy, but it spun up quickly to speed and seemed to be going faster than mine at home. I've compared mine a few times with the speed I run at outside on the Nike + and it seems fairly accurate, so I chalk it up to me being tired at 6:10 on the East Coast and struggling to run.

However I liked this treadmill. Having run all over the place on various treadmills of all styles, vendors, and quality, I have to say that these True treadmills were some of the nicest I've been on. If they weren't $5k+ for the model, I'd consider getting one at home.

Spirit Treadmill - KC

I’m not sure of the model, but I hit a Spirit treadmill in a hotel recently and I didn’t like it. It was slow, felt like the speed wasn’t up to what the display said, and it felt like it was on an incline. Even when I reduced to 0, it looked, and felt, like it was still high.

It was a bit of a struggle to run, and though it might have been some fatigue, it wasn’t a treadmill I liked.

This was a commercial looking model, and I expected more. It’s possible that being in a hotel it was worn down, but it looked fairly new. If I’d have had more time, I would have given up and gone outside.

Running at Incline

I usually run on the treadmill at a 2.0 incline. That’s probably a touch low for the hill as I leave my ranch, but it’s a decent incline that helps keep me in shape. I worry about running too much higher.

However my son used the treadmill recently and I ran outside a bit, and when I came back to the treadmill one day, it felt funny. It felt like I was running downhill. Sure enough, I checked, and the incline was 0.0, which is slightly downhill on some treadmills.

I fixed it and everything felt fine, but it reminds me how far I’ve come. I used to run at 0.5, or 1.0 and struggle to run a mile and a half. Now I bang one out without thinking.

Precor 945i

While we were in Steamboat Springs I ran one day in the fitness center that is in town. They had a few treadmills there, including a LifeFitness one, but I chose to try out a Precor 954i.

This is a smaller treadmill than the Life Fitness one, but still a decent sized device. I got on it for a 20 minute run and overall it seemed OK. The deck had a decent amount of springy-ness, but not too much, and the motor pulled the belt well. However the controls were a little flaky for me. I had trouble getting to the button I wanted and once when I was trying to change from the time to the pace, I ended up hitting the rest button which stopped the treadmill, not a lot of fun.

True Treadmill

I'm not sure what True treadmill was up in the condo at Keystone, but it was a low-end, older, residential treadmill. It had heart grips, but two 1" pipes vertically holding up the front and only a 4 or 6" extension from the display for handrails, essentially on hand rails at all.

This one wasn't great, it felt slow, and the interface was very cumbersome. I had to pull the safety pin out to reset the mileage and get it to start from scratch. It also registered much slower than my Nike+ sensor, which I'd calibrated at home, so I used that for measuring distance.

Overall this felt like a weak treadmill and I wished the weather would have been better for running outside.

LifeFitness 95T

While I was in Seattle, I got to run on a LifeFitness 95T treadmill and it was really nice. It's a large, commercial quality treadmill, and the ones at the top of the Seattle Sheraton had an additional workout screen added to them with interfaces for TV, iPod, and MP3 players.

I was skeptical, but I turned on the personal trainer for my first run. It was interesting in that some virtual avatar was there encouraging me along. That along with the virtual track, showing my progress around (4 laps/mile) and it helped pass the time. Unfortunately the TV wasn't plugged into my treadmill because I got just static when I tried.

The next day I took my iTouch up there and plugged it in. The have an iPod bottom connector, not a 2.5mm plug, and so you get all your playlists and things on the screen. That was cool, but honestly there isn't a scroll wheel, just a series of buttons, so you want to just pick a playlist of artist and let it run. Trying to change things (other than forward/backward) while running didn't work well.

It's an interesting high tech workout. There are other tracks, including a cross country, hilly 5k track that I didn't run, but I used it as a reference during one of my runs, going 2.4k or so.

The deck felt well, the motor kept the speed up well, and overall it was a good treadmill I enjoyed running on.

Precor 956i

At the Embassy Suites in Orlando that I was staying at, they had Precor 956i treamills with TVs built on top of each one. It seems like an option, and it had nice controls for changing channels and things.

The treadmill, however, which seemed new, wasn't something that I enjoyed. I usually run at about 6000 ft near Denver and this is sea level, so I expect to feel differently, but the first one I used felt sluggish, maybe even .2-.5mph slower than it was reading. I also had the calorie counter feeling like it was slow.

I set the speeds and incline the same as my treadmill in Colorado, and the distances looked OK, but it felt very weird. They looked fairly new, not spanking, but not older like some of them I have seen in health clubs.

The second day I tried the other treadmill here, same model, and it felt slightly better, but still sluggish. I wasn't thrilled with the overall feel of the treadmill, though my legs felt fine after the runs (immediately) and the next day.

I wouldn't buy one of these.