Assault Airruner using iPAD instead of their console

Hi,

I was watching Super League Triathlon and saw that they were using manual treadmill “Assault Airrunner” with iPAD instead of Assault console.

Anyone is using this, I want to do it in my assault treadmill bit did not find any information how to do it.

Thanks

I have an Assault AirRunner which I connect directly to Zwift for speed. As for the SLT, I believe they were using Runn Treadmill Sensors for speed and the iPad’s were there as screens so the athletes could monitor their position in the race. My guess is that Assault was not used for speed because they did not have a sponsorship deal (all their decals were covered).

I use an Assault Airrunner with an Android tablet for Zwift. Pace data comes from Stryd, HR from a chest strap.

It is useful to note that effort vs pace is much tougher on the Airrunner than flat running outdoors or using a motorised treadmill at 1%. It is supposedly equivalent to running up an 8% incline, which you can’t adjust. Put another way it requires 20-30% more effort (power) at any given pace.

This is, I guess, not an issue when the playing field is levelled, and everyone on the same treadmill, as in your competition example, but a different story when competing or training on Zwift and trying to match the same targets as everyone else on motorised treadmills.

For this reason I actually relay pace from Stryd via my Fenix watch and make a pace adjustment of 1.25 to compensate before forwarding the modified pace to Zwift. This keeps things honest with my performance outdoors - same heart rate for same pace indoors and out.

For similar reasons I have increased my weight for my Stryd by a factor of 1.25 as well. This means that my indoor power matches my outdoor power for equivalent pace.

Of course it is not required to make these adjustments, but you will have a tough old time matching your outdoor performance and other people on Zwift without them.

Reference to the harder effort…

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Really nice response Tim and I appreciate your advice. I just purchased an Air Runner Pro and I intend to run on Zwift during the winter months. I am competitive and I know I wont be able to tolerate a 1 min penalty to my pace. You mentioned using both Stryd and a watch are used to alter the pace. Could you please explain why the watch is necessary? I just bought an expensive treadmill and Stryd is expensive as well. I am really hoping to avoid the watch. I run outdoors normally but I just use my phone and Strava for my runs. I’m very new to the indoor technology. Thanks in advance!

The watch isn’t necessary any more, if ever, but at the time it was my chosen solution to the problem of correcting the effort vs pace imbalance.

Basically i used my Garmin watch to adjust pace from Stryd by a factor of 1.25 and then to re-broadcast the adjusted pace to Zwift using the Virtual Run activity within the watch.

Mathematically this was easy and exact, but technically not fully reliable, with me sometimes grinding to a halt on Zwift while my legs kept going on the treadmill. For some reason the watch and Zwift just lost connection and it was tricky to restart within a run.

I discovered that i could deceive the calibration of Stryd pace directly within Zwift, but it needed a bit of maths and/or file editing in Zwift.

When you perform Stryd calibration in Zwift and you are asked, for example, to run at 10 kph, then you must run at only 8 kph. At the other target speeds you must also run at 80% of target. On the curved treadmills it is not so easy to hit and hold an exact pace for the brief period of each target. And Stryd appears to perform pace smoothing just to increase the challenge of hitting an exact number promptly.

Once you’ve done your Zwift calibration the figures are written into a file. I don’t recall which one. But you can edit this file to set the calibration multiplier to exactly 1.25X. You will also see cadence figures in this file. I don’t know exactly how Zwift uses cadence in the pace calculations, but it is probably best to run at your most natural cadence for any pace when calibrating.

So, the watch is easy, but unreliable, while without the watch is more effort initially, but more reliable from thereafter.

p.s. If you have only one Stryd, used indoors and out, then setting a calibration factor in the watch would be a royal PITA because you’d have to change the calibration between indoor and outdoor runs. I had two Stryds - one used with calibration indoors and one without calibration outdoors.

Thank you again Tim! Your answer is very detailed and I understand what I need to do. I watched a video showing how to calibrate a pace meter within Zwift. This is easy for treadmills where you set the belt speed and it is fixed. I understand the challenge trying to do this on a manual curved treadmill. I never thought of the reason to own two Stryd units for indoor and outdoor running. I will see how much I like it for outdoor running and potentially consider another. I use Strava for all outdoor runs and that has been enough to keep me engaged and interested

This is my first year running and I completed a few races for the first time ever. I enjoy the feeling of trying to catch someone. My only purpose for the Stryd at this time is to avoid every powered treadmill runner from being faster than me in Zwift. I will lose engagement if I am slow and cannot keep up. I found another post where you said you participated in bike events while running in Zwift. Interesting concept!

You won’t need two Stryds. I only “needed” two because the calibration in my watch would mess up outdoor runs (or powered treadmill runs) if calibrated for the curved treadmill. I had two because i upgraded from Stryd to Stryd Air/Wind or whatever it’s supposed to be called and kept the original Stryd as a spare. I did not buy a second one just for the treadmill.

If you calibrate in Zwift (as opposed to in a sports watch) it won’t affect Stryd anywhere else. It’s just Zwift that will show the corrected pace for the curved treadmill.

As for cycling with Stryd as the power meter, it only seems to work with an ANT+ connection, not Bluetooth. Great for PC/laptop, not so good for phone/tablet.

I am new to the curved treadmill and would like to calibrate my speed as you have . I am using the zwift runpod and from what I remember you are not able to calibrate unless you actually hit the speed suggested. So Im unsure how running at 80 percent would achieve anything unless stryde calibrates differently?

When you calibrate Stryd it does not affect the values sent by Stryd. It sets a multiplication factor to be applied to the numbers coming from Stryd. With a Garmin watch (and no doubt others) you can set a calibration factor. This only affects how the watch displays and records the data, with the adjusted figures from Stryd.

It is no different when calibrating on Zwift. The Stryd (or other footpod) produces its own numbers. If you want an adjusted figure displayed/recorded then you need to create a calibration factor/multiplier.

You do this by tricking the Zwift calibration process so that when Stryd outputs 8 kph Zwift will believe that you are actually running at 10 kph and so on at the different calibration speeds.

You will need to do the maths in advance for your selected calibration speeds and then use another device - sports watch or Stryd app - to show the speed produced by Stryd. Aim for your 80% target speeds on that device when you calibrate. When you’ve finished, Zwift should subsequently use the adjusted speeds instead of the raw Stryd (footpod) speeds.

The outcome of the calibration is stored in a file and can be edited for perfection. Have a look at this post for an example. Click the expand icon to see the full post…

Unfortunately the post is about removing a calibration, but you can see the calibration numbers in the file. These can be edited and saved for subsequent use when you start Zwift. At least it can on PC/Mac. If using a mobile device I think the manual editing is not an option, but you should still be able to trick the calibration.

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