Today’s road races have a familiar soundtrack: the din of thousands of sneakered feet popping off the pavement, the snuff and splat of snot rockets, cheers from the crowd, and, of course, a chorus of bleeps and chimes from everyone’s GPS.
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I love data, but it’s easy to understand why some runners are overwhelmed and a little freaked out by the smorgasbord of numbers.
I believe training to race well is as much an art as a science; my coach and I don’t live and die by the numbers. Here’s how I use data to make me a better athlete, while avoiding the pitfalls of information overload.
Good: Hitting Correct Effort Levels in Training
Heart rate is one of the metrics I use the most, and it’s conveniently taken via my wrist by my watch, so I have HR data from almost all of my runs.
I refer to it along with how I feel to ensure I’m staying in a recovery zone on easy days. Although recovery days can be a great time to run refreshingly watchless on your favorite loop or trail, It’s good to have on days when you want to eliminate the guesswork.
For example, when I’m starting back after a break I sometimes don’t want to admit that my “easy day” when I’m at peak fitness is not the same pace as my “easy day” at current fitness. I think slightly demoralizing pace readings are what many runners don’t like about the GPS watches, but recovering based on heart rate rather than pace seems less disappointing and more like an honest reading of your effort.
For regular mileage days where aerobic development is the priority over recovery, I usually hit the pace I have in mind and note the heart rate afterward without too much adjustment. That’s my norm barring sickness or an upcoming important race, when self-preservation kicks into overtime.
Another use for the heart rate feature is when I’m working out in unfamiliar or extreme conditions. Hard efforts can be frustrating to get through at altitude, in windy weather, on a really hilly loop, in hot weather, when wearing a ton of layers on a cold day... the list goes on! All these variables affect your workout. I like to check in on the heart rate to make sure I’m in the zone I intend to hit, and then I can worry less about how crazily the pace may be fluctuating. The same goes for recovery runs in these conditions, when you may push to hit your usual pace range and get a harder run than you intended.
Speaking of unfamiliar conditions, I find the waterproof feature helpful for my rare but occasionally necessary forays into cross-training. Everything feels “hard” to me when cross-training, so it’s helpful to have some heart rate info from my flailing swim, pool run, or bike workouts to let me see what I’m accomplishing.
Heart rate measurements are also helpful for younger or beginning runners to learn where their individual threshold and recovery paces really are. Long-time runners can probably go by feel on an average day, but you want to learn the correct zones for those feelings early on.
Good: Tracking Progress
I love seeing the metrics improve over the course of a few months. It’s motivating and confidence-boosting to see heart rates drop at the same long run or workout pace that was harder weeks ago. It’s the same positive feedback you felt in school when you got a good report card in that you know you’re learning and progressing, but seeing it laid out in numbers has an impact.
Apps like PolarFlow make it easy to check in on progress with a Running Index rating for your workouts. It will also literally tell you if your training week is progressing your fitness, maintaining it, or if you’re overtraining if you don’t have time to pore over all the graphs.
Good: Long-Distance Coaching
Having data from workouts has helped me communicate better with my coach when he can’t watch them in person for a long stretch of time. I send him my data after workouts and long runs, and although it’s still not the whole picture, it’s more useful information than an “I felt okay” or just splits in a text message. Now he can see elevation gains and drops, heart rate fluctuations, and even the map of where I worked out for road efforts.
If you’re being coached by one of the many online programs out there, a watch with a variety of data seems like a good pairing.
Not So Good: While Really Racing
Splits are great when I’m going for a certain time goal, or even when biding time before the racing starts in a long event. It keeps me engaged and aware, and heart rate is something I might check in on early in a race. For example, in the New York City Marathon last fall, I noticed in the first five miles that my heart rate would get higher the louder that people cheered. (Go Brooklyn!) It was interesting information to have, and I did try to consciously calm myself down knowing that we were running easy so I should take advantage of the energy savings.
But there comes a point in the race where none of this information really matters. When the real racing for the finish line starts, fully engage in that chase and let it bring the best out of you, rather than get distracted or held back by certain parameters. At that point, I usually stop looking at my watch unless I get dropped by the pack.
Not So Good: Becoming Hung Up On Numbers
As someone who likes data and goal setting, I sometimes struggle with the need to hit benchmarks in mileage or pace. Are you the kind of person who wouldn’t leave .99 miles on the watch or leave it at a 29-, 49-, or 99-mile week? Then you (and I) might be getting a little too into the data for data’s sake.
The stats can and should inform and guide your training. I have to try not to get sucked into shaping the data into something that looks how I think it should for a fit athlete. I remind myself that the objective is racing well, and avoiding overtraining Other Hearst Subscriptions.
It can be tempting to be hyper-aware of your data when you know it’s going to be posted on a social networking fitness app like Strava. Stay confident in what parameters you need to abide by to maximize your progression, and don’t get too sidetracked by impressing people with your workouts. That’s what race day is for!
I try to approach public workout posts with a wide angle lens. It’s a body of work over time that creates a successful program, so when checking out other people’s data, you can’t fixate too much on one extreme workout or run without considering their entire season’s calendar.
The data is not what people will see, and it’s not what needs to be perfect. Race day is what needs to be great, and a lot of helpful feedback is in the numbers, but a lot is also based on your subjective feeling in workouts. Sometimes I need to be more zen with my data. I think it was Buddha himself who said of GPS data, “Observe it, learn from it, but do not emotionally react to it.” (Quote not verified.)
Ultimately, I think of data as a really helpful tool that can highlight patterns in training you may not have noticed over time. In a world like sports that marries an art and a science, it’s half the story, and that’s significant. Running also has a strong thread of freestyle attitude coursing through it, where sometimes you have to run free, uninhibited, and not worrying about information. Good thing there’s room for both: train with your watch, and race with abandon!
Molly Huddle is a two-time Olympian who holds the American record at 10,000 meters. She placed fourth at the 2018 New York City Marathon in a personal best of 2:26:44.
