Launching Apps Was Hurting My Progress, Not Helping It
In my 15 years of experience, I’ve tracked my progress with clunky online journals, GPS-enabled watches, and smartphone apps. At first I carefully studied all the data, but now I am back to where I started: with a wrist watch and a piece of paper.
The development of technology in running
When I started running. I walked out with a wristwatch and a folded printout of the beginner’s running program I found on Runner’s World . When I got home, I took a sip of a cold drink, took a quick shower, and recorded my day’s run in an online journal. It was 1999 or so, and I guess I was still using the 486 .
Ten years later, I borrowed fantastic technology from a friend: a giant clock that could tell you what pace you are running at right now . It was amazing. That winter I started training in the marathon, and for Christmas I bought the same watch: the Garmin 305 . This thing was my best friend: it told me how long I ran, how far and at what speed. He could track any line or circle I asked for. I could upload my data after every run and see a map of where I was! A graph showing my time per mile! A graph showing exactly where I have accelerated or slowed down!
More time passed, and an even more wonderful thing happened: all these functions began to appear in smartphone apps – and, oh yeah, I got a smartphone. Now I could launch something like RunKeeper and ask a female robot every mile to tell me how fast I run and how long I have to go. If I wanted to follow a specific interval program, the female robot could tell me when to speed up and when to slow down. And at the end of the day, I could get the same data dump my hi-tech watch was giving me, without a charging cable.
And yet, the more serious I took about my running and my sporting activities in general, the less I cared about the data dump. Most of these numbers didn’t help me train. Some were harmless distractions, but others tricked me into changing my goals. For example, I failed one race because I was focused on seeing the “correct” numbers on my watch, when I should have paid more attention to how I feel.
How technology can interfere
Where there is a number, there is a temptation to “improve” it. Some lucky people can collect tons of data about themselves and use it wisely, prioritizing what matters and forgetting about everything else. But some of us can’t find a balance between obsession and ignorance. This can lead to unwanted actions based on numbers (“I can completely bring my calories down to 1000 tomorrow!”), Or frustration with the limitations of humanity and physics (“Why didn’t I run this race as fast as a calculator? Predicted that I could ? “)
Take, for example, the average pace that apps usually give you at the end of a run. Since this is one of the three numbers the app uses to sum your run (your app may differ), it’s easy to assume that average pace is an important number that means something. You will be tempted to decrease this number every time you go outside, or at least expect it to drop over time, right? But this mentality is the opposite of what will help you in the long run. Your slow runs should be slow , and the quality of your fast runs is not measured by the total, which includes warm-up and recovery times.
Instead, you should measure every run against your goal, even if it’s not something you can quantify. For easy runs, I focus on feeling relaxed and just saving miles like money in the bank. In terms of intervals, the goal is to run at a certain speed, but do it constantly, keeping track of how those intervals feel. In truth, a lot of the feedback about your running workouts will be about how you feel , not what numbers you hit.
This is why all these graphs and charts can get in the way. We have good days and bad days; we get injured and recover. We hope and yearn for improvement. And all of these trends make data dumps easy to frustrate us by showing us in our faces how “slow” we are, or allowing us to find other bugs. On the other hand, we might be happy to see any improvement in numbers that is useless without a reality check: Are these numbers correct to focus on?
My # 1 Low Tech Tool: Pencil and Paper
While I have not completely given up on technology, I rely on technology much less than I used to. My preferred measuring tools are a wristwatch (with stopwatch function) and a pad of paper and pencil that I keep at home.
My process begins with setting goals and deciding which numbers to watch out for. If you are not tracking your progress towards a goal, there is no point in tracking anything at all. I break down my goals by week and by turns, and then I’m ready to fill out my piece of paper. I’ve tried different formats, but my favorite is the one below. (On the left, you can see the plan I was working on; I used it to figure out my runs for the week.)
That’s what I’m doing:
- I write my goal for the week in the upper right corner: something general and usually simple, like “run 10+ miles” or “train twice, even if I’m on vacation.”
- I jot down the days of the week on the page and jot down my planned runs – at least the most important ones. I leave space between them.
- After each run, I write what I actually did, even if it differs from the plan. I fill in the data that really matters: key numbers, like my average time over a series of intervals and my running feel. In the example above, I was dealing with a minor ankle problem, so I tracked aches and pains so that I can track how I feel over time, and so that I can accurately describe the problem if I ended up seeing a doctor on this occasion.
- In the column on the far left, I record my total mileage for each mileage and then add up the mileage at the end of the week. Just for fun, I also tracked my current mileage.
- An emoticon or frown next to each launch helps me gauge how well the program is performing. If I see a lot of frowns all the time, I know I can burn out or get discouraged.
Notice how much is missing: no average pace, no maps, and I only include lap times or split times if I was planning to run a specific pace. Even then, I use my time as a real test of the plan, not the other way around.
These are just numbers to help me track my progress towards my goals. For the week shown here, my goals were:
- Maintaining a constant number of runs and a constant or small increase in weekly mileage
- Running intervals as part of a plan to increase your sprint speed
- I’m happy with my runs, so I’ll keep motivated to keep going.
From there, I knew what I needed to track: my weekly mileage, interval speed, how I felt, and how many runs. All the other numbers the app can give, like how fast I ran on my easy days, don’t matter. I either didn’t track at all, or I didn’t record.
My low tech tool # 2: the watch
I have another low-tech tool: a wristwatch with a stopwatch function. I use it on the runs that I really need to measure time: course intervals, tempo runs, and timed races, which I use as a training session before (or instead of) a race. It’s lighter than a phone and less bulky than a running watch. Also cheaper.
A wristwatch is sufficient for most running tasks, but it excels in several aspects. One is super short intervals. When I run 30-20-10 (some of my favorites!), I always use a watch with a stopwatch function: start at 00 every minute, increase my speed by 30 and drag my ass by 50. Good luck with setting up the app that will offer you have such short intervals; Robot Lady barely has time to ring her bell and say, “Next. Interval. Twenty. Seconds. Middle. “
A simple clock is also the best tool for any time you really care about. I found that the robot lady might be a little wrong in her prompts. It’s okay when you’re measuring miles at a time, but it’s definitely a problem when your intervals are just a few minutes.
The only thing a cheap watch can’t do is remember the lap times of your entire workout. I get around this by either writing my lap times in a note on my phone, or simply paying attention to whether it’s above or below my predicted time. For example, “five seconds too fast … eight seconds too slow … ten seconds too slow …” is enough to tell me that I started too quickly and fade away. Sometimes precision is not needed.
Why do I still carry my phone with me when I run (usually)
I carry my phone for most runs, but not for data dumping. Instead, I use it for:
- Safety and Navigation : I use Google’s pinpoint location feature to make sure my spouse can find me in the event of an emergency. I can also use my phone to call for help as a last resort, or to navigate with Google Maps or saved PDFs with trail maps.
- Music that makes boring runs better.
- Periodic recording of specific data : On a new route, I will use the app to keep track of the distance traveled, especially if it is a trail that I cannot measure in any other way. When I run circles on the track or do a few back-and-forth runs uphill, I use the app to keep track of my total distance (and ignore any other numbers the app reports).
When I use the distance app, I turn off the robot lady’s notifications, put it in my pocket, and try to forget about it for the rest of the race. Then I just write the important numbers – usually just the distance – in my journal with pencil and paper.
Even so, the GPS on your phone or running watch may sometimes not work properly (especially in heavy cloud cover or when running through skyscrapers). This is why it is useful to know a few old ways of measuring distance: take a route by car or bike, measure on a map with a rope (suitable for lesser known routes that only have paper maps), or use MapMyRun when you get home to your computer.
At the end of the day, tracking is all about achieving your goals, so you don’t need to track what you don’t want. Ditching apps (or selectively using their data) helps you focus on the metrics that matter most to you.
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