My past experiences on treadmills ran the gamut from using incredibly expensive Woodway treadmills in college to being forced inside due to frigid temperatures when I lived in the midwestern United States. It never gelled, and the most I could ever bang out was around eight miles. What follows is my experience with the X22i Treadmill over the course of the last year as I trained for both mountain ultramarathons and a road marathon.
Additionally, I reached out to professional ultrarunner Kyle Pietari to discuss his experiences with the treadmill over the past few years and how he incorporates this tool into his busy life and training. The author on the NordicTrack X22i Treadmill at home. The treadmill itself is large and feels solid all around. However, the fact that you can train at such ridiculous inclines is really valuable and translates well to hiking up the steeps in races.
Another feature that sets this treadmill apart from others is the ability to select specific speeds and inclines with the push of a button. The touch screen allows one to toggle through various settings in manual mode to see pretty customized data including total ascent, distance, time, pace, heart rate, and more.
NordicTrack makes four models of basically the same treadmill, but with different-size touchscreens. The X22i , the model I tested, has a inch screen. The smallest screen, on the X11i, is 10 inches, and the largest screen on the X32i is, perhaps you guessed it, 32 inches. You probably can also guess that the models get much more expensive as the screens get larger. The inch screen on the model I tested was absolutely beautiful with a clear picture and snazzy graphics. At first this seemed incredulous, so I called NordicTrack last year and customer service told me that this update had not come out yet.
If NordicTrack did include a web browser this would be a huge upgrade, as the high-quality touchscreen and speakers do provide a nice viewing experience. It is fun to be able to look at actual scenery of the beautiful trail, however, the whole experience seems a bit wonky as the scenery does not stream past, but rather provides screenshot-style Google images. Instead, I used the treadmill in manual mode and did my normal training. If I wanted to upload a workout from iFit to Strava, it involved downloading and converting a file and then uploading it to Strava.
