Not a troll.... Sometimes I am just not feeling it and in order to survive on the treadmill I either periodically touch the handle or take a planned 30 second break every mile by holding the handle outright. I notice that by touching the handle with a finger or two my heartrate drops by 15 bpm. Clearly this is cheating and the pace i am running on the tm does not reflect what i am actually doing. A 10mph effort on the tm while holding the bar is similar to the effort if at 8mpw without holding the bar.
So the question is should I just focus on effort (measured by HR) or is it entirely cheating? Yes I know my running mechanics are not correct when on the TM but that is true even when running when not holding the rail.