Guess is that it's a potentially simple solution, but with a pretty small pool of people who would be interested so maybe manufacturers just haven't bothered.

What would you use the data for anyway? I incorporate hill training regularly when I'm running, but elevation isn't something I particularly track other than looking at out of interest. Same with cycling, I'll go ride up hills because it's a good way of training, but it's the TSS I'm interested in from a tracking perspective, not the elevation.

You raise a good question when you ask what I want the data for. In part it’s pure geekery and data fanaticism. However, I also want to target specific training that’s appropriate for specific races. I will, for example, have some sessions where I’m targeting a total ascent as an approximation of one part of a race. For example, on Sunday I wanted to cover 2,200m, which is two thirds of the average ascent per day during the race i’m doing in May. I did 500m on a treadmill and then 1200 in the real world and then a final 500m on a treadmill. Perhaps I just need to think about it differently and consider overall effort or, as you say, TSS. THat does raise the question how to track TSS on a treadmill too? I still think it’s odd that the manufacturers don’t offer the metric anyway. They have invented so many of their own nonsense measures and metrics. Using a real-world measure would be more effective in my view.

Real world? You are on a treadmill which pulls you into extension.

Massive over thinking here

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Andrew Garwood
http://www.2xu.com
http://www.newtonrunning.com
http://www.ascendsport.com.au

What Ultra you doing? 2200m = 2/3...……...3300 meter climbing per day? That is 10,000 ft per day. I can see that in a 100 miler over two days, but not much else

Quite possibly but I need some measure of input and output and ascent seemed like an obvious one. I know that a treadmill is always a compromise but unless I move to the mountains, it’s a useful tool as part of an overall training plan. I don’t know how else I’d benchmark my use of the treadmill other than by time and perceived effort, which is always a bit hit and miss in my experience. Ascent is at least consistent on the same treadmill, even if 500m on a treadmill is not the same as 500m in the real world. And as we all know, it’s such an easy metric for the machines to calculate so why would they not show it? Still, I’m open to and appreciative of all advice so genuinely interested to know how you’d approach it?

The race is the Dragon’s Back Race. 320km and 15,500m over five days. Lots of climbing, most of it technical in nature. You can appreciate why I need to get my training right!

That is awesome. Wish I could do that...doing a 100 mile this year and a 38 mile with14k feet of climbing.
Next year I hope to do a 200 or 240 miler over 4 days...good luck

A simple excel sheet ?
Green you enter
Orange, it calculates

I think a good old excel spreadsheet might satisfy my need for data for now!

I have a running calculator app for android.. I'll add something like the above excel calculator into it. Only reason I hadn't added it in originally is that I didn't see much use for it.. but in reverse I guess its interesting too.. If I ran 500m and gained 70m what was the average incline.

Thank you. That’s very helpful.