Tuesday evening the official Zwift Run press release took place at Sport&Spine, Ninove. Organized by Territory Representative Stephan Tytgadt it was an evening with demo's by Seppe Odeyn, explanation and the possibility to run yourself from the Pajottenland in London.
"Zwift Run is the exact equivalent of Zwift, but for runners," Stephan explains. "Just as in the known application, one can run free courses, participate in group events, participate in races or upload structured work outs via ERG mode. Even the interface is the same, with the only difference that your KM splits are shown on screen." At certain intersections you can choose what way to turn, allowing you to explore London or Richmond in a few run's time without having to get in a plane. At this moment, Zwift Run uses the same courses as the bigger brother, which sometimes gives a weird image, running along a peloton of bikers. It can be expected that, if popularity grows, runners will get their own courses.
Our vice-World Champion is convinced of the concept: "it's way more stimulating than crunching miles on a standard treadmill. The structured work outs are an absolute bonus as well, the ERG mode allows you to complete a session exactly as planned without having to look for a track or having to pace for yourself." Zwift Run has the option to display your HR and speed graph on screen, thus allowing you to completely control your training.
Money Talks
This all seems nice, but how does it work? Or more precisely, how do you get Wattopia in your living room? You don't need an awful lot, an internet connection and a PC or tablet ar standard requirements. Up comes the treadmill. Depending on your budget you can opt for a Smart treadmill which, similar to a Smart bike trainer, will communicate autonomously with Zwift and will automatically adjust speed, resistance and even gradient settings. If you don't have thousands of dollars to spare you can opt for a standard treadmill, combined with a foot pod such as the Polar Stride sensor Bluetooth Smart. This sensor will, after calibration, communicate the correct speed and cadance to Zwift. The changing in speed and gradient will be manual in this case. By making use of a foot pod and tablet you can deploy Zwift on every treadmill. If you don't have one for your own, you can take your virtual world along to every fitness centre.
And what does this all cost? Nothing. Indeed, for those already possessing a Zwift account the run feature is added free of charge. The newbies on Zwift get to choose between a Run- and a Bike/Run-account. The Run-account is free. The Bike/Run-account will cost exactly as much as the Bike-account, 15 USD per month. And this at least until the end of 2018.