The Story of a Happy Owner of a Precor 9.27

It’s always a pleasure to meet runners who have found the treadmill that suits their needs completely and are content with their purchase. We thank Andrea Eagleman, owner of a Precor 9.27 Treadmill, for sharing her story and experience with us. If you have a treadmill story to tell too, submit it to us. We will review and publish it on RunReviews.com.

By Andrea Eagleman

I bought this treadmill in November 2011 from the local Dick’s Sporting Goods store and have used it for seven months now, and I absolutely love it. I’ll admit that I was nervous about this treadmill because I previously owned a used commercial grade treadmill purchased from a gym. My old treadmill had all the bells and whistles possible on a treadmill, and the Precor 9.27 definitely seemed a bit more “minimal” in comparison.

I’ll give a bit of context for this review by telling you about myself and my running habits. I am a competitive runner at the local level and compete in many 5Ks and 10Ks throughout the year, along with a few half marathons and/or full marathons each year. I typically run between 30-50 miles per week, and having a treadmill is a “must” for me in the winter because of my job. By the time I get home from work it is dark outside and I don’t feel comfortable running in the dark alone. Also, we tend to get our fair share of snow and ice where I live, so it’s important that I have the option of running on a treadmill in that type of weather.

Regarding my decision to purchase the Precor 9.27, the factors that were most important to me were finding a treadmill that would be powerful enough to handle long runs of 10-15 miles, that had an incline feature so that I could mimic hills during my runs, and that was fast enough to do speedwork such as 800m repeats or tempo runs at right around a 6:00 per mile pace.

The Precor 9.27 has met all of those needs very well. Although the treadmill has 10 pre-programmed workouts available, I’ve never used those because they don’t appeal to me. I usually have a workout in mind when I hop onto the treadmill, so if I need to do speedwork or a tempo run I just manually adjust the speed with the buttons. The longest I’ve ever run on it at one time was 15 miles and it handled that distance just fine. In terms of the pace, it seems to speed up and slow down much more quickly than other home treadmills that I tested. The speed also feels very true to pace, which is great because I’ve been on some treadmills that feel much faster or much slower than the speed shown on the screen.

One of the other nice aspects about this treadmill is that it is very quiet and sturdy. I don’t notice it shaking whenever I run faster paces and it is never very loud. Additionally, I love the incline feature. When I’m forced to do long runs indoors I can include some “hills” during each mile and add a little variety to the run that way. The treadmill came with a heart rate monitor, which synchronizes to the screen, and I’ve used that a few times when I wanted to know how my heart rate varied during hard intervals and easy recovery periods. Along with all of those features, the treadmill has metal planks on each side of the belt along with handlebars on each side that make it very easy to hop off for a few seconds if you need a drink or need to stretch quickly.

The only two things I wish it had, and believe me these are very minor points, are 1) a decline feature, which is almost non-existent in home treadmills, but extremely useful for training on downhills in addition to the uphills, and 2) the display only shows the miles and tenths I’ve run. I wish it also showed the hundredths. Again, this is very nit-picky, but it’s nice to know how close I am to the next tenth. I can live without it, though.

Finally, you might be wondering about the set-up. As I said before, this was purchased from a local sporting goods store, and my husband and I were able to transport it home with a truck. Dick’s would have done this for us for a $100 fee, so we decided to bring it home ourselves and save the money. My husband assembled the treadmill and it took him a few hours. He said it was very easy to set up and he didn’t have any problems. Overall, I would definitely recommend this treadmill to anyone who is looking for a durable, reliable, and affordable treadmill with minimal features.