A letter written by Former Pro/Elite Triathlete and 2007 Ironman World Champion- Janda Ricci-Munn, on his experience training on a TRUEFORM.RUNNER for the Patriot Half Iron Triathlon. From 14 year hiatus of triathlons to placing first in the Men's Open, learn about his experience below:
"Hello Trueform team,
I wanted to take a moment to reach out and let you know how impressed I have become with your Trueform Runner treadmill. After a 14 year hiatus from the sport, I decided to start training for triathlon again. I began my tri-specific preparations over the course of this past winter. As a 47 year old father of 2 who works full time (teacher & coach), many of my training sessions occur well before the sun has risen and after it has set. Not wanting to risk life and limb trying to run in icy winter conditions here in Gloucester, MA, I decided to invest in a treadmill. I had never been aware of non-motorized treadmills until I stumbled across some footage of athletes using them in a couple of different venues, and the idea of low maintenance option, that would also be safer for my kids to use, became very attractive. As fate would have it, was lucky enough to find a lightly used Trueform Runner for sale and snatched it up this past winter. Having never run on a self-powered treadmill, I will admit that the first couple of sessions took a little getting used to, and I even questioned if I had made the right move (vs. buying a motorized treadmill), but within a couple of weeks, I started finding my groove and the genius of the Runner's design dawned upon me; the Runner was forcing me to run with sound mechanics. I became acutely aware of how my mechanics impacted my ability to achieve and maintain desired efforts and paces. Within a few weeks of use, I had the Runner figured out. When stepping back out on the road, I noticed an efficiency with my stride that I had not felt since my collegiate track & field days. My track and tempo based sessions out in the field also confirmed that things were going very well and that the Runner most certainly appeared to be making a positive impact on my run performance. The months went by and I continued with my weekly prep. As a middle aged athlete doing his best to maintain a pretty intense training routine, the reduced impact that accompanies treadmill based sessions helped me to remain injury free and consistent with my approach.
So after 6 months of hard work, my first real test came this past weekend when I competed in the Patriot Half Iron Triathlon in East Freetown, MA. I'm happy to report that I exceeded my own expectations by winning the event outright in a time of 3:59. I won the race on the run, recording a 1:16:49 half marathon split. I felt relaxed and very comfortable with each passing mile and never once had to strain to maintain a steady pace of 5:40s - 5:50s per mile. It was, hands down, the most comfortable half marathon of my life. I felt incredibly smooth out on course and I contribute much of that feeling to the biomechanical efficiency that the Trueform Runner has imparted on me, especially when training in fatigued states during long indoor brick sessions and hard threshold rep sets.
As a long-time competitive athlete and multisport coach, I'm highly impressed by your treadmill and will be recommending it highly to the athletes that I work with. On a personal level, I look forward to continuing to log many more miles on it as I prep for Alpe d'Huez triathlon in July and Ironman Mont Tremblant in August. Thanks again for creating such a great piece of gear that both I an my entire family will be able to use for years to come!"
