Tracking your sleep with a sports watch or a smartwatch is a straight-forward endeavor: you simply strap it on, climb into bed, and snooze. Even though the basics are painfully easy, there are several less obvious tips that can make your sleep-tracking experience much more successful and enjoyable. Here they are...

1) Prevent your watch from interrupting your sleep

You definitely don't want your watch to light up, make noise, or vibrate while you're sleeping. With Garmin watches you can easily turn on a mode called Do Not Disturb for this purpose (long-press the Power button then scroll to the moon icon), and with Apple Watch you should use Theatre Mode (swipe up from the bottom and tap on the "comedy and tragedy" mask icon). This mode turns off the screen on Apple Watch, unless you intentionally tap the display or press a button. This way, when you shift around in bed, your watch will remain dark.

2) Be intentional about when you charge

Charging smartphones while you sleep is common practice, but your watch obviously cannot do this and track your sleep in a meaningful way. To avoid being insufficiently charged at the start of the night, you need to be intentional about when you charge your watch. Many people charge up while showering in the morning, others do it while they cook dinner and pop it back on after it's fully charged. It may be a good idea to store your watch charger in the bag that you carry everyday so you have more options for when you can charge.

3) Uncomfortable? Try another band!

Many people give sleep tracking a try but quickly abandon it because they find wearing a watch uncomfortable as they sleep. It doesn't help that many watches come with silicone bands, which some people find unpleasant to sleep with. The skin under your watchband may even become irritated. Don't let this kind of discomfort completely stop you from sleep tracking. There are many great replacement bands available on Amazon for as little as $10. Try using an inexpensive nylon "sport loop" style band. They're softer, they provide a comfortable yet snug fit, and they might help you sleep like a baby.

4) Use the alarm clock on your watch

When smartphones became popular they replaced your camera, calculator, and even your alarm clock. The thing is, there's a much nicer way to wake up that's vastly superior to fumbling with a noisy phone on your bedside table. If your watch has a built-in alarm clock feature, you should definitely try using it instead of your normal method. This is one feature that the Apple Watch gets just right. It peacefully rouses you with silent, non-jarring vibrations on your wrist, which don't wake up the person sleeping beside you.

5) Track your sleep data on multiple platforms

Any watch that has sleep-tracking capabilities will also provide a way for you to review some of the data that was collected. However, there are other platforms that let you do more with this data. For example, SportTracks lets you easily create custom sleep-tracking charts that you can place next to other health metrics like steps, calories burned, resting heart-rate and more, and arrange it to your liking. Plus, if you decide to switch from one brand of watch to another, your old sleep and health data will be on the same platform as the new data from your new device. SportTracks offers a free 45-day trial so you can fully test it out — and you won't be charged when it ends.

Thanks for checking out this article, and thanks for making the healthy choice of prioritizing sleep!

Periodized training is the practice of planning multiple seasons of workouts and recoveries in order to achieve peak fitness for a specific race. We explain the basics in an article called Training with Periodization, and in a separate article we cover a similar approach called reverse periodization that better suits people who have a limited amount of time to train during the short and busy days of winter. In this article, we provide insight on how to strategically plan your training blocks for optimal performance — if you choose to adopt this approach to training and racing.

When to begin?

We've been publishing these articles in early January because it's a great time to take a fresh look at the year ahead, however, the most important endurance races typically take place in the spring and fall, so this time of year isn't ideal to start your training. For example, if you want to peak for a spring race, you should already be halfway through your training cycle with months of very specific workouts under your belt.

Runners who choose their A-race as a fall marathon will typically begin their macrocycle in May. The most common starting point for endurance athletes who practice periodization is October. Keep this in mind as you make your plans for 2020 and beyond.

Your best may be 3 to 5 years ahead

Depending on your goals, it can take several years of periodized training to achieve them. For example, if you're middle-of-the-pack runner who wants to qualify and race in the Boston Marathon, it may take a number of years to stack the accomplishments required to move you to the next level of competitiveness.

It's great to dream big, but you need to be realistic about your short-term goals. One of the advantages of carefully crafting a periodized training plan is to avoid overtraining and injury. Reaching too far, too soon will only set you back.

Avoid medium intensity

Whether you embrace traditional linear periodization, reverse periodization, or a hybrid approach, be sure not to fall into the trap of spending too much time in zone 3. Without carefully balancing easy workouts in zone 2 with harder efforts in your upper zones, it will be difficult or impossible to make gains. This is often the downfall of those who choose to only train by feel. Workouts are usually harder than you perceive them to be, so if you're not carefully monitoring your output with heart-rate or power, you can easily be overdoing it and holding yourself back.

A traditional linear plan will have you doing lots of low-intensity miles for the first couple of months building your base fitness. More experienced athletes can jump into reverse periodization plans that have more intensity in the beginning, but smooth out into low-intensity miles later in the program. In both cases the low-intensity workouts play a pivotal role. It is strongly recommended to stick to the tenants of polarized training and plan 80% of your workload in zone 2 with 20% being harder workouts. 

Peak performance is unsustainable

When you're performing at your absolute best in your age group and experience level, it isn't something you can sustain for several races, seasons, etc. To truly reach your peak, you must push yourself beyond the norms to a heightened level and put in an effort that will necessitate a long period of recovery. This is one of the tenets of periodization. You build, increase workload, create race-like conditions, taper, then crush your race with everything you've got. That level of exertion is followed by a long recovery, then a gradual rebuilding of your base. Starting over, but starting in a stronger place than you were last time around with a bigger goal ahead.

...if you're not carefully monitoring your output with heart-rate or power, you can easily be overdoing it and holding yourself back.

This is why you can't build for race-day fitness, then continue at that level for a sustained period of time. If you did so, the result will likely be diminishing returns and risk of injury. Instead of achieving new goals, you experience a plateau. Periodized training requires more patience and discipline, but it rewards you with new levels of achievement.

Scheduling a macrocycle

The layout of your year will vary depending on when your A-race takes place, your sport type, the particular training conditions of where you live, etc. A 52-week macrocycle typically provides the opportunity to train and peak for 2 major races with training plans that span 20-weeks. If you want to compete in a longer distance endurance event like an ultramarathon or a full-course triathlon, you will likely need to dedicate more weeks of training (with necessary recoveries).

Let's say you're a runner who has chosen the Berlin Marathon as your A-race. This event takes place in late September. You are starting out in fairly good shape, with a few seasons of active training and racing under your belt, so you will be following a non-linear periodization plan.

Mid-April through mid-May: Your first mesocycle features base training with lots of easy zone-2 running, and some speed work (which is how this non-linear plan deviates from traditional linear periodization). In addition to base fitness you do some hill workouts, strides, and efforts at 5K pace.

Mid-May through to mid-June: Now you transition into race focused marathon-pace training with long runs at varying speeds and tempo runs for speed work.

Mid-June to early July: More race-specific milage and workouts at 10K and 5K paces. There are also base fitness zone 2 easy runs. Recoveries are planned and taken seriously throughout the plan.

Early July to mid-August: In addition to other workouts, you do a final 22-mile long run 3 weeks before the A-race. You also compete in a half-marathon tune-up race 4 weeks before the big day in Berlin.

Mid-August to mid-September: You do some long runs at marathon goal pace with short speed intervals to work both slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers. The final taper before Berlin includes some short intensity workouts to stay sharp.

Should you encounter a setback, such as an illness, injury, or work/family obligation, you will need to adjust your training plan to fit your life. When this happens, it's best to start at the A-race date and work backwards to the present, moving training sessions and tune-up races as needed. This is when the training load and performance charts in SportTracks become invaluable. As planned workouts are added, you will see if your performance will be peaking at the most advantageous time.

These charts are available on the Health page in SportTracks, but you can also monitor your fitness directly in the SportTracks calendar to make sure you're on target as you plan each week.

Experts are real

An optimized annual training plan needs to be made specifically for your goals, and to work with the amount of time that you have to train. That's why getting help from an experienced coach is so valuable. You're probably an expert at something, and you know that other people make mistakes that you wisely avoid in your field. It's the same in endurance sports, so consider contacting a reputable coach for guidance.

Thanks for checking out this article! We hope it provided some useful insight into training strategy.

You laid out the perfect training plan leading up to your big race, and then... INJURY! So you adjust your plan with lower intensity and volume and more recovery, and... great news — you still end up crushing it!

But now it's one year later, and you're looking back at last season's training plan scratching your head as to why the plan doesn't look right, even though your workout history shows a new PR. Should you do the same plan as last year, since it worked? Or was there a glitch that caused the lower volume and intensity, but you just can't remember what it was?

—or—

Maybe you had another race last year you totally borked because you got sick the week before. But you forgot to track that. And now you're looking back at that poor performance and wondering how hard you should push yourself and what targets you should set.

What do these two scenarios have in common? They show the imporance of tracking not just your quantitative data (time, distance, power, heart rate), but qualitative data as well. What is qualitative data? It's descriptive information that relates to your training performance. Especially important is information related to health, injury, soreness, mood and illness.

SportTracks has allowed you to add daily notes on your calendar for several years now, but today we've added some new features that streamline and standardize how you can track injuries, illness, mood, or other health issues. Let's get to it!

Injury Tracking, and More!

To start tracking data about an injury, go to the monthly or weekly calendar view, and click on the note icon that appears when you move your mouse over a day.

Note that previously, clicking the note icon opened the form to enter notes about the day. Now in addition to free-form textual notes, you can add injury info by clicking the "Pain and Injury" button:

You can enter injuries for the front or back part of your body: click a spot on the body outline, use the slider to set the severity, and optionally enter details:

Enter as many injuries as you like. To edit an injury, simply click the marker and change the text or severity. You can remove an injury by selecting a marker and clicking the trash button.

If you would like to enter a health event that isn't an injury, or don't care to mark a particular spot on your body, you can use the "Health Report" button. The form lets you pick from different types of health events:

Just like the injury form you can specify the severity and add notes, and enter as many events as you want.

Monitoring Injuries for Coached Athletes

If you're a coach, you might be wondering how to monitor your athlete's injuries. The answer is you can use the same tools above while viewing a coached athlete's calendar page. Simply click the daily note to view details about injuries and other wellness, or add related notes for recovery. If an athlete has told you about a specific injury or health problem but hasn't noted it, you can add it for them. It works just the same as for self-trained athletes.

When you drive too fast in a vehicle, you can get in trouble with the police, but when you run too fast too early in a race — you can penalize yourself with a slower finish time. The speedometer tells you how fast you're going in a car, but in running, you measure your speed with pace data on a GPS watch or a mobile app. Even though pace is absolutely essential in running, the basics are often glossed over or ignored completely. The point of this article is fill in these blanks so we all can can have a stronger understanding of pace.

Why do runners use pace to measure speed?

Running is an old sport, and the ability to glance at a watch to see how fast you're going is still new. In the recent past, if a runner wanted to know how fast they were traveling, they would need a stopwatch and a course that was pre-measured for distance, such as a running track. A single lap on a standard track is 400 meters, and four laps equal a mile. A common practice was to start a stopwatch, run four laps, then hit stop. The resulting time was your mile pace.

This is one of the reasons we don't use miles per hour (or kilometers per hour) in running, as we do in motor vehicles. If you're new to the sport, the numbers involved with pace take a short amount of time to get familiar with, but once you do, you realize they provide many benefits:

• Pace gives you an immediate sense for how long it takes to cover distances in your runs.
• Popular races like the 5K are completed in well under an hour, which makes using pace more applicable.
• Pace numbers seem more satisfying. Running a mile in 6:40 (4:08/k) feels like more of an achievement than running a mile at 9.07 mph (14.6 kph).
• Slight differences in mph (and kph) seem insignificant, but they're not:

1 second faster is significant. It's the difference between 1st and 2nd place. Another great thing about using pace data in running is that the "splits" are useful for managing your races in an organized way.

What are splits in running?

A split is the amount of time it takes to run a specific distance, such as a mile or a kilometer. A 5K race will have 3 separate mile splits, or 5 separate kilometer splits. When you cross the starting line at a race and hit the Start button on your watch or device, you can check your split times at each mile (or kilometer) marker to see if your pace is on target to achieve your goal time. In races longer than the 5K, if you start off running too quickly, you will tire and slow down for the latter part of the race. Many runners strive for a "negative split", which means they ran the second half of the race faster than the first.  

Your GPS watch will likely automatically display your splits every time you do a training run. Similarly, when you look at your data after you work out, you will see splits displayed in charts. SportTracks shows your splits in the Intervals tab on a Workout Detail page, where you can directly compare them to changes in elevation, your heart rate, cadence, calories, and run power data.

How to improve pace in running

One of the best ways to improve your pacing is to intentionally practice it. You should know how to run at marathon pace, half marathon pace, 10K pace, and 5K pace. A good way to determine these paces for yourself is to visit the SportTracks Labs Race Finish Time Predictor. Enter in a race time you have previously run (if you haven't raced yet, enter a time and distance of a fast training run). The calculator will instantly display your predicted finish time with the pace required to achieve it. You will see predicted paces for many distances.

When you're out running, intentionally practice locking into different paces. Start with your slower marathon pace, hold it for 2 minutes, then recover for 2 minutes. Then do a 2-minute interval of half marathon pace, followed by 2 minutes of recovery. Next try to hold your predicted 10K pace for 2 minutes, then spend two minutes recovering. The point is to learn what it feels like to hold different paces. Practice this often. Analyze your data afterwards to verify what you felt, to see if your heart rate consistently followed the intervals up and down, etc.

Hopefully any lingering misunderstanding you had about the basics of pace in running are gone and you can confidently stride away at your future races. If you want to learn more about the basics of run training, read our articles on Heart-Rate 101 and Running Form 101.

If you follow running news at all then you’ve probably heard about and formed your own opinions on Nike’s VaporFly 4% and ZoomX Next % shoes. As a full-time employee in the running specialty industry and enthusiastic, but far from elite runner of marathons, they are certainly a topic that comes up frequently in my day-to-day life. 

Slow to hop on the bandwagon

When the VaporFly 4% arrived on the shelves of the store where I work in advance of the 2019 spring marathon season, I was unimpressed. The shoe’s woven FlyKnit upper made my toes feel claustrophobic and my flat foot spilled off its incredibly curved last* in a most unbecoming foot muffin top of sorts.

Plus, my discounted price for the VaporFlys was equal to what regular people pay for standard running shoes. Given that I am unaccustomed to spending a lot of money on running shoes to begin with thanks to the perks of running store employee discounts, and the fact that I was feeling particularly uninspired by my personal marathon training experience at the time, I proclaimed myself to be a non-believer of the Nike VaporFly hype.

The tide begins to turn

This all changed when I entered my 2019 fall training cycle. After a spring cycle spent on the struggle bus and a VERY unimpressive race time (despite an excellently fun race experience) I was hungry for some serious marathon redemption. So, I signed up for the California International Marathon, known for its speedy course and described by the race’s marketing campaign as a “PR factory”, and told my coach that I was ready to bring out the big guns and go after an epic breakthrough PR. As my mileage climbed to weekly totals never seen before by my training log, my fitness and confidence increased as well, and I became obsessed with doing all the little extra things I could to gain an additional fitness and confidence edge towards reaching my goal.

I did core strengthening exercises. I subscribed to geriatric bedtimes. I ate vegetables. I even (occasionally) used the foam roller. And then, amidst all the big miles and positive health behavior changes, Nike released the Next %s in my power color. The color of my aura. Obnoxious highlighter pink. That’s when I knew I had to have them.

But are they cheating?

Lest I needed another reason to make those sexy pink shoes mine, in October I watched them pace Eliud Kipchoge to the first ever sub-2-hour marathon (Kipchoge himself was wearing a different Nike prototype shoe that likely offers an even greater increase in performance than the Next %) and help Brigid Kosgei shatter the long-standing women’s marathon world record in the same weekend. Why wouldn’t I want to buy these shoes with such compelling evidence to demonstrate their claims of gains in running economy, especially when I could purchase them with my employee discount? But with these amazing, unprecedented, high-profile results came pushback and controversy. 

Now, let’s take a moment to back up and look at the technology of the VaporFly 4% and ZoomX Next % and how it works. The key elements that separate it from other shoes on the market are: (1.)  A carbon fiber plate that is embedded in its midsole, which stores and releases energy with each stride and serves to propel runners forward. (2.) An exceptionally light, soft, and resilient midsole foam that assists in facilitating energy return to the runners and reduces (or delays) the onset of muscular fatigue in the legs. 

Does this make racing in the VaporFly or the Next % unfair or just too good to be true? I REALLY WANTED that big breakthrough PR, and I wanted to take every measure possible to optimize my odds of achieving it, but it was also important to me to come by it honestly. So, I read the articles from Runner’s World, The New York Times, and Outside Magazine. I picked the brains of every trusted expert and running nerd I could think of. The consensus from all friends who had already bought and raced in the shoes was that they are magical and life changing. I watched one such friend drop 13 minutes off her marathon PR to break 3 in the Next % in Chicago. My boss, who owns the store and is highly acclaimed as a local running guru wore them in the New York City Marathon. My coach, while confessing that he did find them frustrating as coach of elite athletes who have shoe contracts with a shoe company that isn’t Nike (completely unrelated to his coaching of humble mid-pack me), assured me that shoes weren’t cheating and couldn’t produce speed or fitness that wasn’t there. Two weeks out from my December 8th race, those beautiful pink spaceships for your feet became mine at long last.

Testing the waters

I bought them just in time for the low-stakes, not at all competitive turkey trot race near the town where my parents live. Despite the calls of douchebaggery and being “100% that bitch” from my running store co-workers, I toed the line in the pink spaceships on race day. I cannot deny that they feel like a dream. Lighter, bouncier shoes I cannot fathom. Just the act of putting them on made feel not only faster and more confident in my running abilities, but also prettier. I nabbed the top female finisher spot and gloriously gaudy plastic golden turkey trophy with ease. To be fair, I did not break any land speed records in the 5K distance. Not even close. But I did run a very-good-for-me time on a hilly course, and surprise myself with my first ever win in a running event. It was a small, but effective ego boost as CIM loomed ahead.

This is it. Don’t get scared wow.

10 days later I was on the start line in Folsom. I had the good fortune of running into some entertaining friends from home who were aiming to run a similar pace and agreed to keep me company on our trek to Sacramento. Early in the race I mused that we might distract ourselves from the grind of the marathon by counting other runners wearing Next %s. (Two out of three in our trio were wearing them.) I quickly realized that a more feasible goal would be to count the people NOT wearing Next %s, because damn near EVERYONE was rocking a pair. (Keep in mind that we were as much as an hour behind the winners of the race, probably somewhere around the front of the middle of the field.)

To my great surprise and joy, I had a probably once in a lifetime perfect race experience. I felt great and strong THE ENTIRE TIME. (I have done enough marathons to know that this is NOT normal.) I was miraculously able to drop the hammer in the final 5K to cross the line with at 4:00 minute + negative split and a 5 min PR!

Was it the shoes, though?

Needless to say, I was pretty stoked about how things went at CIM. I felt at least 50% better than I have in any other marathon during the race, 25% less beat up in the days after the race, and 100% happy with my result. I was also about 1 million % sure that the shoes had improved my finishing time by AT LEAST 5%, if not more, but for the purposes of writing this article I decided to crunch some numbers just to be sure.

My previous marathon PR was 3:21:XX and I ran a 3:16:XX at CIM. As it turns out, if my math is correct, that falls somewhere between a 2 and 3% improvement. Although the margin is smaller than I had hoped and dreamed, this progress IS good for shaving 5 minutes off my marathon time and that is not insignificant. But how much of that credit can we really give the shoes? I don’t know the answer to that, but I DO know that in addition to racing in them, I also trained harder than I ever have before and made lifestyle changes that I hadn’t been willing to make in training cycles past. So, my verdict on Nike’s magic shoes is this: Yes, they do work, and I suspect that the confident boost they provide is every bit as valuable as any mechanical advantage they might add. But they are in no way a training shortcut, and they can’t supplement any speed or fitness that hasn’t been earned with sweat equity. So, if you’ve got an extra $250 laying around and you’d like to give yourself a bonus boost of self-confidence for your marathon, I say head over to your local running store and snag a pair before the get banned!

What’s next for the Next %?

With mounting evidence of the VaporFly and Next % shoes providing a mechanical edge over any other shoe on the market right now, running discussion boards and media outlets speculate that the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federation, read: the international governing body of all things running) may ban use of the VaporFly in competition or at the very least, place regulations on how much midsole stacking height a shoe can have. Meanwhile, other shoe manufactures including Brooks, Saucony, Hoka, and Asics are adapting technologies similar to those in the VaporFly to their own innovations. 

It is certainly an interesting time to be alive here in the running specialty industry! We at SportTracks will continue to follow the VaporFly saga and weigh in as new developments unfold. Meanwhile, we would love to hear your thoughts on this hot-button topic. Have bought into to Next % craze? Did you run a big PR in yours? Do you think they are bending the rules? Let us hear from you!

Heart-rate data is used heavily in both running and cycling, and even if you primarily rely on another metric—like power or pace—heart-rate is still valuable for monitoring ramp-ups and recoveries, trends in your fitness, and anomalies like decoupling. So why isn’t it widely used in swimming? The main problem is that access to underwater heart-rate monitors has been severely limited, but this story has been changing rapidly. At long last, heart-rate data is easy to track in the water, and now we're going to show you how to use it.

The pace clock: born in 1946

Swimmers aren’t historically known for embracing new workout tech. Most lap-pool attendees only use RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) and the pace clock, the latter of which is an innovation that arrived 74 years ago. RPE is simply your perception of how hard a work felt, based on a scale from 1 to 10. The pace clock and RPE are both still quite useful, but why ignore heart rate when it's likely already available on your workout tracking device?

How to use swim heart-rate data

Using heart-rate data in swimming isn't radically different from how it's used in running or cycling. You can intentionally train in specific zones targeting aerobic and anaerobic energy systems separately. Another option is to only utilize heart-rate data in post-workout analysis. For example, you may be following a training plan with workouts based on T-Pace swim zones. As you progress through the plan, your analysis can show if your heart rate is trending lower as you get more fit, helping to verify that the stimulus is being effective.

Your heart-rate zones are going to be significantly lower in swimming than they are in other sports because:

1. Water has a cooling effect on your body which improves circulation
2. The buoyancy of the water makes you mostly weightless, which means your heart doesn't have to fight gravity as much to circulate blood
3. The horizontal nature of swim strokes also helps to reduce the workload of your heart 

Depending on your fitness and skill level in the water, your zones should be set 10 to 15 beats-per-minute lower than they are on land. For well-trained swimmers under the age of 19, maximal heart rate will only be 5 to 7 BPM lower. It should be noted that the colder the temperature of the water, the lower your swimming heart-rate zones will be. This is due to a physiological response called The Diving Reflex. Thankfully, most indoor lap pools maintain a consistent temperature all year long, so this may not be a factor you need to consider.

One way to put your swimming heart-rate zones to work is start swapping them out for pace-based portions of established workouts. Swim workouts usually have warmup and cooldown sections. Knowing your zones, you can swim these portions trying to remain in heart-rate zone 2, rather than simply swimming by feel.

Unfortunately, monitoring your metrics in real-time is still a major challenge in swimming, but post-workout swim analysis is excellent on SportTracks. You get dedicated charts based on pool lengths, and metrics like stroke rate, stroke distance, SWOLF, efficiency, heart rate and more.

Equipment for tracking swim heart rate

It wasn't long ago that the only way to track your heart rate in the water was to place two fingers on your neck or wrist during a rest and count the number of beats you felt. Unfortunately, in swim workouts, this manual method is usually plagued with inaccuracy.

In July of 2019, Garmin added underwater heart-rate support using the built-in wrist-worn optical monitor on their popular Forerunner 945 and 245 watches. Every Apple Watch from the Series 2 on has underwater HR-support, and the Polar OH1 and OH1+ both support underwater heart rate as well (the "+" model comes with the required swim-goggle clip).

If accuracy is what you're after, and let's face it, IT SHOULD BE, then the head-worn Polar OH1+ is a good choice. You don't even need to wear a watch with the OH1+, as it can record the workout by itself, and you can easily auto-sync it to SportTracks by linking your Polar account. The OH1+ is also compatible with the Form swim googles, which have a display that lets you monitor your heart rate as you swim. Another great option for accuracy are Garmin's HRM-TRI and HRM-SWIM chest strap monitors.

Is heart-rate data flawed?

Heart-rate data is an imperfect training metric. It's influenced by diet (too much caffeine, not enough hydration, etc.). It's also influenced by lack of sleep and other factors. But as we stated in the beginning of this article, heart rate is still incredibly useful to verify things you may have felt during a workout, and to uncover things in post-workout analysis you may not have felt. For example, after a minute or two of recovery following an intense interval you may feel fine, but your heart rate stays high.

Despite the inherent drawbacks, I still find heart-rate data useful for monitoring portions of a workout that are supposed to be in the easy zones. It's surprising how difficult it is to remain in zones 1 and 2 for extended periods of time. You need to hold back quite a bit to remain in your low zones, and for this reason alone I find heart-rate training both worthwhile and valuable, as imperfect as it may be. 

Admittedly, we have a way to go to more formally apply specified heart-rate zone training to the sport of endurance swimming. But there are accurate sensors that are readily available today, and there are useful ways to apply their data to improve your performance. If you're not using every high-quality metric at your disposal, you may not be getting to the finish line as quickly as you could be. 

As complicated as training sometimes gets, the basic formula for improvement is simple: stress, recovery, adaptation, repeat. You stress the body with a specific workout, you recover from the stress with either active recovery, such as an easy run, or a rest day. The rest lets your body heal, adapt and make itself stronger, and then you repeat the process with another specific workout. The most common step that people screw up are the rest and recovery days. Failing any of the steps makes the entire system fall down, resulting in disappointing performance plateaus and increased likelihood of injury.

They're called "rest days" for a reason

How do you avoid messing up rest days? The answer is simple, but the realities of everyday life complicate it. When you have a rest day on your training calendar, you need to make sure it's an actual restful day. Pressure at your job, demanding family obligations, poor sleep and travel can destroy the healing and adaptive benefits of rest days. Another problem is that people love fitness so much that they do intense cross-training on rest days — again destroying any positive effects the time was supposed to provide.

The hard work of easy runs

If you have the discipline required to take rest days seriously, there's another major hurdle in your path. When your plan calls for an easy run, or an interval run with easy warmup distance, recoveries, and an easy cooldown, you need to make sure the easy sections don't creep above zone 2.  

Easy runs help build endurance, but they also let your body continue to recover from hard workouts. The healing properties of easy runs are either greatly diminished or nonexistent in zone 3 and above, and unfortunately, it's quite difficult to sense the difference between these zones if you're not tracking and monitoring in real-time. Simply put: zone 3 feels like zone 2.

Why is this the case? Runners typically enjoy running. When a training plan calls for 6 easy miles, the runner happily heads out the door and gets a nice, easy pace going. The fresh air feels good, and the idea that it's an easy workout has a relaxing effect. The runner is in their happy place and they naturally gravitate toward medium-speed paces. Why? Because it's the pace that feels the nicest. And even though it seems easy, the intensity is sabotaging their entire training cycle.

Heart rate and run power to the rescue!  

We constantly hear people singing the joys of running without a watch on social media, and you know what? We think it's great! Anything that motivates people to run, train, and lead a healthy lifestyle is wonderful. But, if your goal is to get faster, beat your own PRs, and be competitive at races on the podium or in your age group—while making injury avoidance a top priority—then you need to take easy runs seriously, and a GPS watch is a must-have accessory.

Even if you're a deeply experienced runner who believes they can stay below zone 3 completely by feel, it's worth experimenting with a GPS watch to validate it. The slightest bit of elevation or headwind makes a big impact on your effort level, and if you're not a super fast runner, remaining in zone 2 can quickly become an act of trying to run as slowly and lightly as possible without breaking into a walk.

Running with a heart-rate monitor is strongly recommended for tracking easy runs. Heart rate is considered by some to be inferior as it's influenced by diet, sleep, and other factors. But when it comes to easy runs, the feedback an accurate heart-rate monitor provides is valuable for the act of staying in the low zones.

If you have access to a running power meter and you've dedicated the time and attention required to get familiar with run-power data, then this is another excellent tool for monitoring easy runs. Running power meters have the advantage of providing faster feedback. When you make an adjustment to your stride in order to lower your intensity, you will see the results of the change much quicker than you will see your heart rate ramp downward.

If you're running on a flat course without much wind, you can also use pace zones to limit your intensity, if you don't have access to a heart-rate monitor or running power meter. But keep in mind that changes in elevation and wind can quickly make pace zones difficult to follow.  

Use structured workouts with targeted zones

SportTracks makes it easy to create custom structured workouts that you can execute on your watch. In just a few clicks, you can create an easy run workout with the goal of staying in zone 2 of your running heart-rate. You can quickly export this workout as an .FIT file to load into a watch, and if you have a Garmin, a handy calendar integration will send this workout directly to your watch automatically.

When you do this workout, your watch will beep and vibrate to let you know when you're in your targeted zone, and when you have exceeded it and need to slow down. There are likely people out there who would find this beeping an chirping from their wrist annoying, but personally, I enjoy it. I find it makes the sport of running a bit more like a game that I need to focus on to improve. But ultimately, the real reward is avoiding the burnout and overtraining that can consume you if you're not working hard to keep easy runs easy.

Not that long ago, running power meters were fringe and experimental training sensors, but today they're produced by major brands like Garmin and Polar, and found on everyone from beginning runners to elites like Eulid Kipchoge. They're still niche, but continue to steadily grow in popularity. Stryd released their latest hardware offering, the New Stryd footpod, in June of 2019. I started running with it in late January, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this category-leading product. 

The headline of this post is "The New Stryd: Is It Better?" but I won't force you to read a pile of words to get that answer. I can confidently say that it's superior to the now discontinued first-generation Stryd footpod (which itself was superior to the Stryd chest-strap monitor and the original belt-clip version). When the new review unit arrived at SportTracks headquarters, I had already started an 8-week 10K training plan that was based on pace. When I switched to monitoring power instead of pace — it was like having a blindfold removed.

I transitioned to using power for training quickly because I had used the first-generation Stryd footpod extensively, and had also tested the run-power features of the Polar Vantage V. If you've never used run-power data before, you need to first run with your power meter for a few weeks to familiarize yourself the numbers, and to collect data to use as a baseline. Patience is required for this on-boarding process, but Stryd delivers meaningful value to any runner the very first time they use it: it provides deadly accurate pace and distance metrics.

Running watches calculate pace based on GPS signals, and when you're running in an area where they have trouble reaching your wrist, such as in a large city, then the pace metrics displayed on your watch are likely to be inaccurate or nonexistent. This is exactly what happened to our SportTracks Social Media Manager when she ran the 2016 Chicago Marathon. Ellen was depending on pace, and the orbiting spacecraft let her down.

I was quite unpleasantly surprised at how unnerved and helpless I felt without a trustworthy GPS to tell me my pace. —Ellen Moss

If you have a race that passes through an area with large buildings, or goes through tunnels or other environments that hinder satellite reception, then having a Stryd footpod on your shoe is worth the $220 USD price tag alone. It's not inexpensive, but neither are the running shoes you replace every 500 miles, nor the entrance fees for your big races. That money gets you the most accurate pace and distance metrics in the sport, and the data is collected on your foot with sensors—no satellites required. You could pace a prefect race in the Holland Tunnel Marathon, if there were such a thing.

What's interesting is that you will likely start ignoring pace and distance metrics altogether and only look at your wattage.

My experience with The New Stryd

After running with The New Stryd for 2 weeks and just glancing at my power and comparing it to pace, I conducted a 6-3 Lap Critical Power Test at a local track. This test was developed by Stryd to determine your current Critical Power, which is very similarly to Running FTP (the maximum effort you can hold for 1 hour without slowing down). It was windy when I did the test, and a fast barefoot runner was flying clockwise in the innermost lane while everyone else was respectfully going counter-clockwise. I dealt with the drawbacks and proceeded with the test to the best of my abilities.

Afterward, I crunched the numbers using a calculator on the Stryd site to determine my up-to-date CP. The result was 280 watts, which seemed too high. Even though I'd only returned to running with power 2 weeks earlier, I had reacquainted myself enough to know that holding 280 watts for an extended period would be rather difficult, if not impossible to do at my current level of fitness. This result was partially due to the non-ideal conditions for my test.

Puzzled by the outcome, I launched the Stryd mobile app and started looking at my data. I noticed a control that turned on "Auto-Calculate" for my Critical Power. This was a new feature since the last time I used Stryd, so I immediately turned it on. It informed me that my CP was 259 watts, which felt much more accurate. The time-consuming 6-3 Lap Critical Power test I had conducted hadn't been in vain, though. The fresh data helped the app determine a more accurate auto-CP.

I had already put together an 8-week training plan in my SportTracks Calendar that mostly consisted of multi-step structured workouts based on 8:15 pace. I continued doing these workouts as the days ticked by, but I changed the display of my Garmin 245 watch to only show Pace and Power. As I grew more and more familiar with my power numbers, I started changing the targets of my planned workouts from hitting pace goals to hitting power ranges. Thanks to the training integration between SportTracks and Garmin, every updated workout automatically showed up in my watch.

Running with the wind

The big difference between the current Stryd footpod and the one I reviewed in 2017 is that it now has built-in wind detection. Wind ended up being a major factor in almost every one of my training runs, and on race day there were 13 MPH gusts in the last 2.5 miles. Analyzing wind data turned out to be extremely informative for post-workout analysis, and during workouts I would feel the wind hit, and moments later see the resultant wattage change on my watch.

Stryd Air Power data in SportTracks showing a 5-mile out-and-back run into an 8 MPH headwind

I mentioned earlier that monitoring my runs with power was like taking a blindfold off. I was following a plan based on pace, which was truly beneficial on flat courses with little wind. However, I live in an area with nearly constant rolling hills. I need to intentionally seek out flat courses because my pace-based workouts were almost useless anywhere else. When I switched to power targets, suddenly I could execute my structured workouts anywhere.

The new wind detection feature was similar to having a blindfold removed as well. There are times during a workout where you feel the wind hit you, and you know your effort level is increasing. But there are also times when you don't notice the bluster of wind, but you can see that it's clearly a factor during post-workout analysis. Unlike other platforms, SportTracks fully supports the new Air Power data from Stryd, in addition to the other metrics you get when you wear this footpod: Vertical Oscillation, Ground Contact Time, Leg Spring Stiffness, Vertical Ratio, Form Power, Flight Time, and Duty Factor.  

In addition to running, I walk to work every day, swim, and do indoor cycling rides for cross training. I track all of these activities, and the data flows to my SportTracks Training Load and Performance charts, so I get the most accurate possible insight on my overall fitness. 

In my 10K race, the wind seemed like it was blowing from start to finish, but it only presented a challenge in the last few miles. During the final kick, gusting headwinds added 33 watts of resistance, but with the adrenaline rush I didn't realize it until I analyzed the results later.

Closing thoughts + going forward

SportTracks was one of the first platforms to fully support run-power data, and I'm happy to report that this metric has matured a lot since the early days. There are still a few hoops to jump through to get set up, and it still takes time to get familiar with run-power data, but what you get in return makes it worth the trouble. For me, using heart-rate data during runs is mostly useful for staying in the low zones, and pace data only helps me on flats. Power gives me useful feedback for everything from keeping easy runs truly easy, to targeting and achieving a PR in a race, which I was able to do in my recent 10K using the Stryd PowerRace Garmin Connect IQ app.

Everything that I liked about the old Stryd footpod is found in the new one, and the addition of wind detection is a major step forward. The old footpod used "wireless" Qi charging, whereas the new one uses a small cradle that charges in a USB-A port. Some reviewers see this as a step backward, but I prefer the new cradle. It's much smaller than the old charging pad, and when I charge something, I greatly prefer metal-to-metal charging contacts. 

My next race is an 8K in about 12 weeks, and I'll follow a purely power-based plan this time. As I progress, I'll use SportTracks to compare my EI @ FT over time on similar courses at similar intensities to see if I'm getting more efficient. This is simply how I prefer to train and race. To me, running with power makes the most sense, and feels the most effective. It's not the future — it's happening now. This footpod helps me get more competitive, and because I find the process deeply interesting, it makes running more fun.

In the past week the entire spring racing season was cancelled and my local grocery store has been sold out of produce and toilet paper for days. It’s crazy to think that two weeks ago I willing placed myself in a close-contact crowd situation and that felt perfectly normal and socially acceptable. In the midst of this age of hand sanitizer and social distancing, I thought it might be nice to reflect on a different era of celebrating the running community and human interaction. So, I’m going to tell you about my experience of watching the US Olympic Trials Marathon.

On Friday, February 28th my boyfriend, my running bestie, and I loaded up the car and our best Radio Hits of the 90’s Spotify playlist and made the 6+ hour drive from Durham, NC to Atlanta, GA. Our voices were hoarse from multiple hours scream-singing jams from Usher, Britney Spears, and Ludacris long before starting gun for the race went off.

When we arrived in at Atlanta we attended a happy hour meet up organized by On ZAP Endurance, which is a training center for elite runners (several of their athletes were running the trials) that also provides remote coaching for everyday runners like me. After rubbing elbows with some Olympic hopefuls, we made our way to the AirBnB we were sharing with several other running friends from Durham.

The next morning, race day, we woke up early and headed out for our long run, which we did on the marathon course! The men’s race started at 12:00 p.m. and the women’s race started at 12:20, so there was plenty of time to log some big miles before the main event. After grabbing some brunch and bundling up in our fleece onesies (it was surprisingly cold and windy for an early spring weekend in Atlanta) we made our way to Centennial Olympic Park to watch the start of both races. Check out these awesome pics we snapped of the starting line action!

Men's race field just after the start gun. Photo Credit: Ellen Moss 

Women's lead pack early in the race. Photo Credit: Torrie Edwards

Once the race was underway we trekked over to Peachtree Street for a better view of the action. The course consisted of three eight-mile loops that took the runners down Peachtree and then back up it in the opposite direction, through Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, and the back to downtown. Plus, a 2.2 mile final loop that wound under the Rings and Torch structure from the 1996 Olympics, by the Georgia State Capitol building, past the city’s various sports stadiums, and finally to the finish line back in Centennial Park.

This course configuration made for excellent spectating. With the men’s and women’s races starting at different times, and the route passing up and down Peachtree in both directions, there was seldom a moment that runners weren’t passing by. The quality of our spectating experience was further elevated by cheer stations along Peachtree Street courtesy of the various vendors and coaching outfits sponsoring the athletes running the race. Our favorites were the On ZAP Endurance cheer corner, complete with free snacks, booze, cowbells, and cardboard cutouts of the faces of each of their athletes who were running, and the Oiselle cowbell corner where most spectators were sporting fleece onesies (or Yetis, as they are branded by Oiselle) just like ours.

It was also incredibly cool that five of the women racing were from our area, and one of them was competing as member the very track club that is associated with the running store where I work. Cheering for people I KNOW IN REAL LIFE was a great thrill indeed!

Although the course lent itself well to watching from the sidelines, the hilly nature of it, plus the frequent wind gusts that day surely made it brutal for the runners. Despite our best efforts, we weren’t able to hustle back to Centennial Park in time to see the winners cross the finish line. (Those onesies got very hot and cumbersome and this really slowed us down.) But on our (very long) journey back to our car we found ourselves right on the final 2.2- mile loop right as our pack of hometown women were coming through. The final ascent into Centennial Park seemed particularly steep and windy, and it was obvious that many of the runners were digging deep to make the final push to the finish. We did our best to match their efforts with the loudest, most enthusiastic yelling and cowbelling we could muster.

Ellen, Erica and Brad cheer on runners with inspiring words of encouragement.  Photo Credit: Torrie Edwards

The final race results were exciting and surprising. The top spot in the men’s race was occupied by Galen Rupp, who won handily with a time of 2:09.20. Rupp also won the 2016 Olympic Trials Marathon, making him the only second man (after American marathoning great Frank Shorter) to win two US Trials. He raced the trials under the guidance of his new coach, Mike Smith, after his former coach Alberto Salazar received a doping ban in 2019.

The second-place finisher among the men was Jacob Riley, a first-time Olympian and unsponsored athlete. Riley finished 43 seconds behind Rupp to secure his spot on the 2020 Olympic team. The final spot on the men’s team was clenched by 43 year old Abdi Abrdirahman, making him the oldest US Olympic runner in history. Abdi is a seasoned 5-time Olympian, having made the team in 2012 with a 3rd place finish at the trials. He missed the 2016 trials due to a calf injury.

The women’s race was the closest on record with winner Aliphine Tuliamuk of the Northern Arizona Elite Hoka team edging out second place finisher Molly Seidel of Saucony by only seven seconds. Seidel became the first woman ever to make the US Olympic Team in her debut marathon. Both Tuliamuk and third place finisher Sally Kipyego of the Oregon Elite Track Club are native Kenyans who became US citizen after stateside collegiate running careers.

The athletes who earned spots on the 2020 US Olympic Team did so by prevailing over the deepest field in the history of the Olympic Trials Marathon. Four years ago in 2016 370 men and women qualified for and ran the marathon trials. This year nearly 700 runners, about 480 women and 215 men toed the line in Atlanta. Men were required to run a standard of 2:19 for a marathon or 1:04 for a half marathon, while women had to run a 2:45 marathon or 1:13 half marathon to earn a spot in the race.

My inner feminist running nerd was utterly delighted to watch those hundreds of speedy women, many of whom balance full-time jobs, parenting children, and training their butts off, zoom around that tough, windy course again and again on that Saturday afternoon. After the race, the awesome women from Oiselle (a company that creates fabulous running apparel for women designed by women runners) threw a kick-ass party that was a perfect celebration of their athletes who competed in the trails, their fantastic gear which encompasses the intersection running function and fashion, and the beautiful and diverse women’s running community at large. After a night of photo booth shenanigans, fashion show fun, more scream-singing, and lots of VERY sweaty dancing, we made the drive home to Durham feeling hungover, exhausted, hoarse, and absolutely fulfilled.

Ellen is VERY GOOD at photo booth! Boomerang Credit: Yvonne Monet Photography

And that was the last time I felt normal and at ease in a large group situation. Since then, I’ve been channeling the grit and inspiration of those Olympic Trials Marathon athletes to get up and out the door for my daily run in this time of social distancing. I am so grateful that current recommendations for flattening the curve of the coronavirus spread do not impact my ability to run outdoors, and I cling to those daily runs as a small shred of joy and normalcy in these trying times. I hope you are able to do the same. Until next time, be well! Cheers, Ellen.

The coronavirus has turned the world on its head, and the entire field of competitive endurance races has tumbled with it. For the first time in 124 years, the Boston Marathon has been postponed until September 14th 2020. This is happening in running, cycling, triathlon and other types of races large and small around the globe. If you've built up fitness for a spring race, what are you to do? These setbacks have been an unexpected shock, but good news is that you can start working now for a stronger tomorrow.

Below are several options for how to proceed with your training and racing plans, while remaining responsible and safe...

Option #1: Stick with the plan

One way to go is to continue following the same training plan, while making necessary changes to remain healthy during this crisis. If you live in an area where exercising outdoors is too risky or prohibited by mandatory at-home quarantine, then this isn't an option. Don't worry, just continue to the "Option #2" section of this post.

If you can maintain your plan, replace any group workouts and go solo, if possible. When race day arrives, instead of lining up shoulder-to-shoulder with the competition, you will conduct a private event. Seek out a looping course with as little traffic as possible. Setup a water/refueling station that you can secure in a vehicle or by some other means. This will not be an official race, it's a time trial effort to see if you can achieve your goal. Keep in mind that hard workouts can lower your immune system, so take extra precautions for sanitation and consider racing a shorter distance than you had planned.

Don't abandon endurance training when this process is complete. Choose a goal for the fall and begin training to maintain base fitness a few days after your time trial. It will be good for your spirits, and continuing to do a moderate level of exercise will help your immune system remain in top shape.

Option #2: Shift for a fall peak 

Seeing as many races are being rescheduled for later in the year, it may be more sensible to shift your training to peak in the fall. This can be accomplished by either reducing your training volume or intentionally detraining for a short time and then initiating a longer-term training plan from the beginning. Whichever you choose, remember that you built up a great amount of fitness that will make you stronger and faster when the races return!

Everyone with their 33 week Boston Marathon Training Plan pic.twitter.com/mE09vEvHol

— Peter Bromka (@Bromka) March 12, 2020

If you choose to reduce training volume, the first thing to do is to go through your SportTracks Calendar and limit the distance, intensity, and duration of the upcoming workouts you may have planned. The goal is to scale back to a base level of fitness. More seasoned and experienced athletes will only need to reduce their weekly distance by 25%, those who are newer to endurance sports or perhaps less fit then they have been in the past should reduce their weekly distance by 40%.

In addition to reducing distance, intensity should be dialed back as well. Easy workouts in zones 1 and 2 are recommended for around 80% of your weekly efforts during normal training, and with our current status of being without definite race dates, easy workouts should consume even more of your active time each week.

This doesn't mean intensity should be dropped completely. Toward the end of an easy workout, do 4 to 6 short 30-second running strides (or sprints in cycling) at near max intensity with 2:30 to 4 minutes of recovery between each. Hill repeats are another beneficial way to bring in some hard work, as well as tempo workouts at 85% of your LTHR.

My strategy is to move a couple steps down the pyramid. Drop the anaerobic cap training (fresh fruit). Make intervals more extensive and less intensive. Emphasize primary resources like strength and speed, but cut down on specific race pace work that can lead to a "false peak".

— Stephen Seiler (@StephenSeiler) March 12, 2020

If you choose to detrain and then start from the beginning with a new plan, don't be inactive for more than two weeks at the most. You will lose an exceptional amount of fitness with that much time off, and it will take longer for you regain what you've lost, but it isn't uncommon for an athlete to spend this much time in recovery before starting a new plan. All of the physical adaptations you had gained will not be lost, and you will be starting from a solid foundation to get stronger.

Season-length training plans are typically around 26 weeks long, which is exactly how far out some fall races are likely to be. It's normal for full-course triathlon training plans to stretch out to 36 weeks in length. This option is a nearly complete reset, but for some it's the most appealing way forward.

Staying fit in confinement

If you're unable to get outdoors or to the gym for workouts, don't underestimate body-weight strength training exercises. Lunges, planks, and burpees can provide a powerful workout. Here's an article that explains how to get started with at-home strength training. This article explains some basic strength training exercises for cyclists. A single step or a heavy, sturdy box such as a toolbox opens up an entire world of plyometric exercises you can do at home. This is a time to let your creativity run wild!

No more gym. Just this every morning #QuarantineLife#coronapocolypse#coronaviruspic.twitter.com/dpfczRCE0B

— Firas Maksad (@FirasMaksad) March 16, 2020

Another way to practice healthy training is to test your HRV every morning. This is a practice that measures the amount of time between your heartbeats, which is data that can be used to tell you if you're in danger of overtraining and risking injury. Dedicated smartphone apps are used for testing your HRV, and the data can be imported into SportTracks for further analysis.

In closing, remember that mindset is incredibly important in endurance sports. Think of this as a unique moment to build an exceptionally strong aerobic base. You have time to focus on skills that you can finely sharpen to improve your overall competitiveness. In a way, it's not a setback, it's an opportunity. Stay safe, fit, and positive!

Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic has been heartbreakingly difficult for people around the world, but some of the repercussions are unquestionably positive. One example is that a great number of people are running for the first time — taking much-needed breaks from sedentary self-isolation. If you recently started to enjoy running, we wanted to show you how you can quickly learn the basics of the sport, and adopt more advanced training techniques, too.

 The engine used in a race car and the engine used in running

The above juxtaposition is painfully obvious, but it lies at the core of the sport. In running, the engine that powers you is your body. You don't need a team of experts, a high-tech workshop and lots of money to keep it in top shape. However, there's a decent amount of information that you should understand about running, and the main reason you should understand it isn't so you can win races — it's so you can avoid getting injured. 

Unfortunately, injuries are extremely common in running, but if you train smartly you can avoid them. The same scenario happens over and over: a person discovers that they enjoy running, so they start running more and more. The more they run, the more they enjoy it. You see where this is going... They run more than their body can withstand, and they get hurt. Potential spoiler alert: this might happen to the protagonist in the film Brittney Runs A Marathon. The worst part isn't the pain. When you get injured, it can prevent you from running for weeks and months.

 The pre-coronavirus world seems so alien now, right?

How much should I run?

When you first start running, there are certain milestones that feel amazing. Running for 10 minutes non-stop without taking a walking break is a big one. When you're able run for a half hour non-stop, it's wise to start keeping track of your weekly distance. Why? It's important not to increase it by more than 10%. Run further than that, and you're risking injury. An awesome way to measure your weekly distance is to track your runs.

How should I track my runs?

The most common way for beginners to track runs is with a smartphone app. The most popular ones these days are Strava, Runkeeper, and Endomondo. A few more options we recommend are Polar Beat, the Suunto app, and iSmoothRun. They work just as you would expect them to. When you're ready to exercise, you launch the app, tell it what sport you're about to do, and then tap the Start button. When you're finished, tap the Stop button, and then save it.

You should track every run, and at the end of the week you'll be able to see how far you went. If you want to do more, you can easily calculate how much more distance is healthy to cover. For example, if you did 3 runs for a total of 9 miles (or 14.48 km), then the following week you should try not to exceed 9.9 miles of distance (or 15.93 km). This formula applies to the first week of your running habit, and every week following it for the entirety of your running career.

Most serious runners use GPS sports watches to track their runs. They're nice because they allow you to leave your phone at home, or stowed away in a pocket or fanny pack. It's easier to glance at a wristwatch for a quick update on your current stats, and most feature built-in optical heart-rate monitors and other sensors that add useful metrics and improve the accuracy of your data. You don't need to spend money on one of these watches now, but if you want to get into it, the Garmin Forerunner 45 and the 245 are both excellent choices.

What can I do with all of this running data?

When you start tracking your runs, you will immediately notice that you're collecting a lot more data than just distance. You will also see pace, duration, calories, and other metrics. It's overwhelming at first, and if you never spend a little time familiarizing yourself with fitness data, it will remain useless. The good news is that you are you, and you're reading this article! You can start mastering this stuff right away with the following resources:

In running, your speed is measured by pace. It takes a little getting used to, but using pace provides many benefits. Read our Understanding Pace in Running article for full info.

Cadence is the number of steps you take per minute in running. Higher cadence numbers can provide a smoother, less injury-prone run. Read How to Improve Your Running Cadence to learn more.

Heart-rate data can be an interesting novelty at first, but it isn't obvious how to use it to be a better runner. Our Heart Rate 101 article explains the 3 most popular ways that runners use heart-rate data.

How can I advance to the next level in running?

Once you have the basics figured out, you can start utilizing more advanced training methodologies. There's a lot more to becoming a better runner than just accumulating distance from longer and longer runs. A key way to improve is to embrace zone-based training. The idea is that you label different levels of intensity as specific zones, and then as you run, you intentionally target specific zones. This strengthens different types of muscle fibers within a single run, making you stronger and eventually faster.

Heart-rate zones are often used for this kind of training, but if you don't yet have a heart-rate monitor and are only using a run-tracking app, you can use pace zones instead. A typical way to use zones is to create a structured, multi-step workout that has, for example, a 20-minute warmup step in the beginning in a slow zone 2, followed by a 1-minute interval of running quickly in zone 4 immediately followed by 2 minutes of easy running in zone 2. These intervals and recoveries repeat 5 times, and then you cool-down at the end with 10 minutes of easy zone-2 running.

Remember, your top-level goal is to avoid injury. One way to do this is to plan your runs in advance. If you use a fitness platform that has a smart-training calendar and charts that utilize your workout history and planned workouts to predict your performance, you can visualize injury avoidance. When you use these tools in SportTracks, your Training Load chart will have lines for fitness and fatigue. When these lines touch or the fatigue line overtakes fitness, you are in danger of overtraining and injury. You can adjust future workouts so that your fitness and fatigue lines trend positively. Eventually, when races are scheduled again, you can use these tools to peak for race day.

In closing, we would just like to warmly welcome you to the sport of running! It will do wonders for keeping your spirits uplifted and strengthening your immune system, while adding years to your life if you keep it up. You have made a profoundly positive change. Cheers!  

If you want to achieve a high-level of fitness when working out at home and you're serious about becoming a faster cyclist, you should try the excellent bike workouts offered by TrainerRoad. This is a service that provides a customized cycling regimen tailored to your specific goals and skill level. While TrainerRoad is great for biking, it doesn't provide everything you need to have a complete understanding of your fitness and race readiness. But if you also use SportTracks — you get access to an array of powerful tools that complete the experience. 

What is TrainerRoad?

TrainerRoad is an application for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android that's entirely focused on cycling training. You run the app on your computer or mobile device and it connects with your indoor training equipment via Bluetooth and ANT+. One of the central features is called Plan Builder: you add your A and B races for the year (which are all virtual races at this point), tell it how many hours per week you have to train, and lastly, you select your main riding discipline (criterium, gran fondo, time trial, etc.). Plan Builder will then generate an entire year of periodized bike workouts that you can execute indoors or out.

SportTracks has proudly offered automatic sync with TrainerRoad since early 2015, and once you have our integration set up your TrainerRoad workouts automatically appear in SportTracks after you complete them, where you can then deeply analyze the data. If you do any sports besides cycling — such as running, swimming, hiking, and so on — they will not appear in TrainerRoad, but in SportTracks all of your activities are presented and count toward your easy-to-use Training Load and Performance charts.

How does SportTracks enrich your training?

In addition to providing industry-leading swim workout data analysis, innovative run-workout charts (such as automatic hill-detection interval analysis), there's a lot more that SportTracks brings to the table to round-out your training and racing experience:

Coaching Support - While the Plan Builder feature in TrainerRoad is useful for getting a large number of tailored cycling workouts quickly, automated tools like these do not replace the role an experienced coach can play in your fitness. SportTracks offers full coaching support, so an experience pro can plan your training calendar, analyze your workouts and much more.

Always Multisport- Many other platforms start out focused on one sport and slowly start adopting others as they go forward. SportTracks has been multisport focused since day one, and it shows. With deep analysis and planning tools for cycling, swimming, running, and many more endurance sports, none of your disciplines will be an afterthought.

Injury and Gear Tracking - Your training log should be as detailed as possible, and if you get injured, tracking your recovery is important information for your training history. That's why SportTracks provides comprehensive injury and sickness tracking. Likewise, it's wise to track usage of your gear to avoid injury and breakdowns, so flexible gear tracking is provided.

Notes and Messaging - Every workout in SportTracks has a private notes area where you can keep a record of what happened and any details that will be helpful to know in the future. There is also a public comments section where you can share things with others and have friends leave comments. You can also send private messages to your contacts and coach. 

How does TrainerRoad enrich your training?

Similar to how SportTracks provides many features and capabilities that are not found in TrainerRoad, there are many things in TrainerRoad that you will not find in SportTracks. The standout feature are the guided indoor cycling workouts. In stark contrast to the enveloping, graphic-rich 3D virtual worlds you find on platforms like Zwift and RGT Cycling, TrainerRoad is all business with just live training metrics and simple graphs showing the intervals. There is no audio, but as you pedal words appear on the screen that assist you throughout the workout.

While we are true believers in human coaches, the workout text is an excellent example of how effective a virtual coach can be. TrainerRoad workouts play like a timeline, and as you make your way through the words keep you focused. They are filled with insightful tips and help you stay relaxed while still putting in hard efforts. All of the text was written by TrainerRoad head coach Chad Timmerman, and it's uncanny how spot-on the advice can be. It will say things like "Remember, don't slouch forward during this part of the workout," and you will be slouching forward and immediately sit up. I often find myself pausing my music and podcasts so I can pay full attention to the words.

Dragging on your SportTracks Training Load chart opens a card with the selected workouts

Workout analysis differences 

TrainerRoad offers post-workout analysis of your ride data, but their approach is quite different. You get key information like Normalized Power®,cadence averages, and interval summaries, but the data is intentionally limited. The idea is that they don't want to distract you with any data they feel won't help you get faster. It's an interesting approach, but we see things differently.

At SportTracks, we've always worked hard to make workout analysis as easy and straight-forward as possible. We believe if you want to take a hands-off approach to your training, then you should be able to do so. But if you want to dig into your data and experiment with how you can improve, then you should be able to easily do that, too. Training metrics tend to appeal to data junkies, and we celebrate them.

As far as having a serious, performance-focused cycling platform goes, TrainerRoad is hard to beat. But if you also the want the ability to dig deeply into your metrics and have advanced tools for managing your runs, swims, and data from many other sports, SportTracks is a truly excellent companion.

Try TrainerRoad

Endurance athletes are in an unusual bind these days. With no real-life races happening for six months or longer, it's difficult to determine how to best utilize your available training time — whether you're stuck in lockdown or able to get outdoors. No matter what the circumstances may be, there's one vital skill you can focus on developing: mental toughness.

The importance of the mental game is often expressed by elite athletes. Getting to the front and hanging with the lead pack at a big race is overwhelmingly demanding, no matter how primed and fit you may be. The athleticism required to win is often present in many of the competitors, but it's the racer with the strongest mental toughness who usually dominates.

But this isn't just a tool for the best in the sport, it's something that can be used by people at all levels of experience. It's just as effective for the athletes aiming for first place as it is for everyone behind them. And just like intentionally targeting specific zones and intensities, you can deliberately train and sharpen your mental skills. Here's how...

Recognize training opportunities

Unless you've decided to peak for an upcoming virtual race, you've likely dialed back your distance and intensity from where you would normally be this time of year. But even though your overall workload has been scaled back, that doesn't mean it's devoid of intensity. A challenge is a challenge, no matter where you are in a training cycle. The first step is to recognize moments when you're struggling, and to see them as more than just phases of discomfort, but of opportunities to do mental training. If you're in lockdown take note: these moments of difficulty don't need to occur during workouts, they can be from any aspect of life.

Better utilize your inner voice

Your mind can oscillate from a zen-state of emptiness during a workout to jumping through a range of topics (form, posture, breath, pace, route, duration, etc.). It's what you think about during times of trouble that matters most for mental toughness training. When faced with adversity, you need to intentionally cheer yourself on with statements of positive self-affirmation. Simple mantras like "I am strong enough to crush this interval!" can make a powerful impact on your performance. Come up with your own optimistic statements, find ones you like, and intentionally repeat them in times of need. If you're the type of person that wouldn't normally do this because it seems silly, remember the reason why you're doing it: to achieve goals and reach new heights. Big dreams will benefit from an open mind.

Focus on small accomplishments

It can be fun to explore new routes when you get outside to work out, but don't forget the benefits of repeating the same courses, especially when you're being challenged. For example, when you do hard intervals on the same route, you can set a goal for each repetition and press yourself to hit it in the moment, boosting yourself up with positive self talk as you go. Glancing at your workout tracker after each interval provides cursory information about whether you achieved each goal, but you can take this analysis much further afterwards.

The Compare Workouts feature in SportTracks automatically finds matching workouts 

It can be very helpful to use the Notes feature in SportTracks to jot down how the workout felt, and if any qualitative factors played a role in the outcome. There are little details that are easy to forget, even though they played a major role. It can also be greatly beneficial to use the automated Compare Workouts feature to see how you performed in relation to past efforts. It lets you view similar workouts with a great deal of granularity to better determine if your mental training is paying off. If you're falling short, there may be information in the notes that explain why, further easing the mental burden.

Visualization isn't just for basketball

Even if your goal races are currently postponed, the challenges presented by their courses are alive and well. Heartbreak Hill waits for you patiently in Newton, Massachusetts. The Alpe d’Huez doesn’t have any plans to relocate. You may not be at these storied locations now, but there are mental benefits to to be gained if you visualize yourself achieving greatness at them. If you're stuck on a stationary bike, treadmill, or you only have bodyweight exercises at your disposal, your mind is still free to wander, and the more you visualize yourself excelling at your dream races, the better.

Mental toughness training is useful during our current global pandemic, but it's something you can continue working on and developing going forward. When a scheduled workout falls on a day when the weather is terrible, braving the elements will test and strengthen your mental skills. Taking on non-sports related challenges in your personal and professional life will improve your mental game as well. Your subconscious is a muscle you can flex, so give it the attention it deserves every week.

Considering the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, Team SportTracks is in a relatively good position: our jobs easily transition from our in-person headquarters to working remotely, and the density of our city, Durham N.C., is low enough to allow individual outdoor exercising, such as running. But at the onset there was one minor problem: my running shoes had over 500 miles of use and I needed a new pair.

As a firm believer in supporting local specialty running stores, I wasn't interested in buying shoes from a large online store. It was becoming a more urgent problem, though, because I no longer needed to pack multiple lunches in the morning and transport kids to school and myself to the office. Suddenly I had more time before and after work to do some running. My milage increased just as my shoes were expiring, and my local running shop was forced to remain closed. But then there was a development...

Bull City Running Company has put together a way to do virtual shoe fittings online. You just visit their website and pick a time to do a fitting. I signed up and was sent a short form to fill out. The form had a series of questions about what kind of terrain I ran on, what my weekly milage was, that sort of thing. There were also instructions on how to measure my feet at home using a sheet of paper, a pencil, and a ruler so I could include my current shoe size in the form.

Even though I had gone through the shoe fitting process with this shop in the past, I diligently measured my feet as instructed. My feet are around 10.5 mens US, so, as advised by the shop, I get size 11.5 mens US for my running shoes, to allow room for swelling feet during long runs.

To prepare for my virtual fitting, I dressed in my normal running attire: socks, shorts, and a tech-material running shirt. I had my old running shoes at my side as well. This is the thing to do when you visit a specialty running store in person, as the experts at the shop will want to inspect the wear on your outgoing shoes, and take a close look at your feet. You will also need to try on a few pairs of shoes and do some short bits of running in them to see how they feel.

When it was time to do my virtual shoe fitting, I logged onto the Zoom call and was delighted to see my old buddy Ellen Moss on the other end. We spent a few minutes catching up because we hadn't seen each other in a while due to shelter-in-place restrictions. But it wasn't long before I was holding the tread of my old sneakers up to the computer camera so Ellen could look at the wear. Shortly after that she had me place my laptop on the floor to get a look at my feet.

Ellen had me walk back and forth a few times, and do a test that required me to balance on one foot and dip downward with my body three times. It was like a mini workout within the shoe fitting. This gait analysis led her to the conclusion that I had an over pronation, and the same or similar "moderate control" category of running shoe was my best bet.

With the testing out of the way, Ellen proceeded to show me a few pairs of shoes that would suit my particular feet and running style. They were the current generation of New Balance 860's that I had used last, the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 20, and the Mizuno Wave Inspire 16. She explained how the 860's had evolved, and what made the other choices different from my last pair. 

After our time on the Zoom call wrapped up, Ellen sent me an email with some details about my gait analysis and links to all of the different shoes we talked about. The virtual shoe fitting happens on video chat and the purchasing happens with links to the store's website after the call. 

Even though I had enjoyed my New Balance 860's, I was in the mood to try something new and opted for the Brooks Adrenaline GTS 20's. While I was shopping on their site, I also decided to pick up a pair of Goodr OG running sunglasses. The days have gotten longer here, and I need to keep the sun out of my eyes on runs. Plus, I wanted to support this local business a bit more. When I checked out, there was an option for free local shipping. Win! The very next day the items showed up on my doorstep.

I carefully took the items into my home and proceeded to disinfect various surfaces, washing my hands numerous times as I went. My first priority was to try on the sunglasses. I opted for the gray "Going to Valhalla" model, and thankfully I was happy with how they looked, fit, and felt. Next up was the running shoes.

There was an interval run on my schedule for later that day. Without hesitation I added the Brooks to my SportTracks gear tracking locker. It automatically logs the milage I put on these shoes, so I know when it's time to swap them out again. I attached my New Stryd footpod to the laces and tried them on for comfort. So far, so good. Then I was out the door for the run. The shoes felt great, and the sunglasses felt like I had been wearing them since birth.

This is a time when it means a lot to support your local small businesses. If your running shoes or bike parts are in need of replacement, you should contact your local shops to see how they can help you. If you'd like to work with Bull City Running Company, you can visit their site and sign up for a virtual shoe fitting of your own. Ask for Ellen! She's a hoot!

When you're training for a big goal in endurance sports, some parts of the process are obvious: staying committed to your workouts, sacrificing free time for training, suffering to take your fitness to the next level, etc. But there are some equally important elements that are much less obvious, and ignoring them can slow you down and hold you back.

We spoke to Spartan racing champion and SportTracks coach Ian Hosek from Hosek Performance Engineering to learn more about the less obvious aspects of training and racing that can potentially be stumbling blocks...

1) Little workouts have huge importance

Endurance sports athletes typically enjoy a challenge, but it's the less challenging workouts that can make all the difference. "Big workouts are fun, exciting, and make you want to do them, little strength or mobility sessions that help prevent injury and promote proper mechanics aren't," says Coach Hosek. This isn't just a problem for beginners, either. Regarding advanced endurance athletes, Coach Hosek says, "They have no problems putting in the work or grinding themselves to dust, there is a time and place for that, but they often push too hard and dig themselves into a hole that can take a long time to crawl out of."

If the only workouts on your calendar are runs, swims, rides or basic strength and core training, consider it a red flag. "Most endurance runners and cyclists have weak hips because they spend so much time in the sagittal plane. Weak or immobile hips can lead to a ton of various injuries which can be avoided with a couple 20 - 30 min sessions a week of targeted mobility and strength," says Coach Hosek. "Many times athletes won't do the needed work until they run into one of these injuries. Taking the time to implement these small but important sessions into the program before injuries start to appear will allow athletes to train more consistently and feel better while doing it."

2) Inaccurate zones = wrong intensities

Zone-based training allows you to strategically target specific muscle groups and energy systems to both strengthen your base fitness and to boost your speed. But if your workouts are built on bad data, it can all be for naught. "Heart-rate data can be an amazing resource for athletes but only if it is utilized properly and the data is relevant to the athlete," says Coach Hosek. "The most common error of heart-rate data I see is that athletes are working with zones and numbers that don't actually correlate to their individual physiological metrics."

But even if you use accurate heart-rate zone testing, you may not be in the clear, "If your max heart-rate is calculated correctly, training zones based off max heart-rate still have a large drawback and don't take into account where an athlete's individual anaerobic threshold is," says Coach Hosek. "This value varies a significant amount. Generic equations fall short here and taking the time to find your individual zones based off anaerobic threshold will go a long ways to helping take that next step towards next level training."

3) Don't accept serial injuries as part of the sport

"The biggest training mistakes I see by more advanced endurance athletes is not listening to their bodies," says Coach Hosek. Endurance sports are as much about ritual and repetition as they are about triumph and perseverance. Unfortunately, injury is often accepted as part of the repetition, and many athletes lose enormous amounts of time rehabilitating when they could be staying healthy and reaching new heights. This is often done while training as an individual athlete without outside help.

"The best solution for this is communication with your coach and letting them know what is going on," says Coach Hosek. "Sometimes it may be purposeful to put you in a functionally overreached state, but many times they want you feeling good and ready for each workout. By having an open direct line of communication you can avoid overtraining syndrome, injury, and/or illness and tap your potential faster and with greater effect."

4) Look on the bright side of life

The challenges presented in endurance sports are serious business, but it can be greatly beneficial to smile and seek moments of joy. "Having a positive attitude towards training is one of the most important aspects to succeed," says Coach Hosek. "If you don't enjoy the process or find the grind monotonous, you will most likely burn out quickly and training will become a constant chore instead of a passion."

Photos by S2 Photography

"Making sure to stay excited about the majority of sessions (sometimes days are just a grind and suck) will pay off huge down the road. The work will feel easier, you will recover faster, and being happy is way more fun than hating life." This is the case for general training, but race day can be a different story, "I have found there is one constant among all successful race strategies, it is that the strategy allows the athlete to love the race and execute their plan because they are in a mentally comfortable place. That means a lot of different things for different people, but finding a method that allows the you to find your 'happy place' will set you up with the greatest chance for success."

5) It's not just about going longer

There's a tendency in endurance sports to gravitate toward longer and longer distances, but you may want to re-examine why you choose a certain type of race. "For me, finding the race type and distance that match my goals is a constantly evolving activity. Since my goals change from year to year the races I target shift as well. When I build my goals I like to find challenges that will push me but also get me excited to pursue them. They help light and keep my fire stoked so I have something to focus on and work towards during training."

So, how should you approach race selection? "Take some extra time when examining and creating your personal goals for the year. Work through different ideas and see how they make you feel. It should be a fun process that gets you motivated to go out and train smart and hard to achieve them. If you are fairly new to the endurance world and aren't sure what fills you with joy, try new things! Don't be scared of failure but still do everything in your power to set yourself up for success. The race or event you love the most may be something you have never done before."

If you'd like to explore the possibility of finding an online coach, visit your Coach Search page. The coaches that are geographically closest to you will automatically be displayed. You can click on their cards to learn more about them, or you can type in the name of a specific coach you're looking for.

Ian Hosek is an OCR racing champion and the head coach at Hosek Performance Engineering. Contact him today for consulting or for help in reaching your goals, and follow him on Instagram for his fun and educational posts!

Do you ever wonder how many cars pass you during a ride? Have you ever considered that the amount of traffic and the aggressiveness of the drivers can influence your performance? We have great news because this insightful data is now available in SportTracks! If you use a recent Garmin device, a Varia radar, and the excellent My Bike Radar Traffic data field, SportTracks automatically lets you analyze Vehicle Count, Vehicle Distance, and Vehicle Speed on your charts and maps.

The radar system on the Garmin Varia generates the traffic data, and the My Bike Radar Traffic data field records it an lets you see the number of cars that overtake you in real time. After your ride, Garmin Connect displays the Vehicle Count stat on its website and mobile app. A site called MyBikeTraffic.com lets you manually upload FIT files to view multiple vehicle stats on a map. Thanks to our unique support for Connect IQ data, SportTracks goes several steps further and lets you compare multiple traffic data charts with other fitness metrics like heart rate, speed, elevation, power and more.

What new ride data am I getting?

Vehicle Count: The number of vehicles that come within 98.4 feet (30 m). Garmin Varia radar systems only detect moving vehicles behind you, not parked cars or oncoming traffic. The radar alerts you to vehicles up to 460 feet (140 m) away, but in order to be counted as a factor in your workout, they need to come within 98.4 feet (30 m). SportTracks displays Vehicle Count as a cumulative chart and as color-coded tracks on your maps.

Vehicle Distance: This is a measurement of how far away the vehicle is from you. As a vehicle gets closer and/or overtakes you, this number gets smaller until the pass occurs. SportTracks displays Vehicle Distance as a line chart and as color-coded tracks on your maps.

Vehicle Speed: This is the radar's estimate for how quickly vehicles are approaching. When you overlay Vehicle Speed with Heart Rate in SportTracks, it can help to explain spikes in the data. For example, in the SportTracks workout detail chart below several vehicles suddenly whip by at 47 mph (77 kph) sending the rider's heart racing. Vehicle Speed is also displayed as color-coded tracks on your SportTracks maps.

How to get it working

A few specific things are required to get this useful data into SportTracks. You must have and use a Garmin Varia radar system. It can be any model from the first generation to the latest RTL515 and RVR315 versions.

You also track your rides with a Garmin device that's compatible with the latest generation of Connect IQ. This means an older bike computer like the Edge 520 is incompatible, while the more recent Edge 520 Plus will work. A full list of compatible Garmin devices is in the next section.

Lastly, you've got to have My Bike Radar Traffic data field both installed on your Garmin device, and set up as an active data field on one of your screens. You don't need to have it on your main screen and look at it as you're riding, but it has to be running on another screen in order to collect this data.

Garmin devices compatible with My Bike Radar Traffic

How to start analyzing Varia traffic data

If you don't have SportTracks yet, you can get a free 45-day trial here. You don't have to add any payment information to use it, and you will not be charged at the end. If you already have rides with the My Bike Radar Traffic data, you can easily import your entire workout history and start analyzing right away. You can also turn on auto-sync with Garmin, so new rides get uploaded to SportTracks automatically.

Garmin's Varia Radar systems have been incredibly appealing since the debuted many years ago, and this new advancement makes them even more desirable. It's an exciting development in endurance cycling training, and we're happy to provide the most advanced fitness and traffic data analysis platform available.

Most running watches, bike computers, and mobile fitness apps have an inconspicuous little button that pauses your workout, and it's the cause of many big debates in endurance sports. Whether you use the Pause button, intentionally avoid it, use an Auto-Pause feature, or if you've never given the subject any thought, we wanted to cover the pros and cons so you fully understand it.

Who needs a Pause button?

After you've started a workout and you need to take a break—perhaps at a traffic light, to let a boat pass during an open-water swim, to tie a shoelace, to fix a flat tire, etc.—it can be useful to temporarily pause your workout instead of stopping and starting a new one when you're ready to resume. Seems sensible and harmless, right?

The debate surrounding the Pause button mostly focuses on the accuracy of the metrics, and if the workout data tells the real story of the effort put in. Some argue that when you take a rest, even when it's not planned or intended, that it's part of the activity not separate from it and should be recorded in your workout data. Others only want to see active portions in their workout data, and use the Pause button to keep the rests out.

The good news is that there's no right or wrong way to do it. Unless you have a coach that wants you to use the Pause button a certain way, it's up to you if you should pause or not. Plus, you don't need to decide if you're one way or the other. It's perfectly fine to use pausing on occasion, but you don't have to use it every time. One situation where pausing doesn't make sense is during a race. You want the numbers on your device to be as close as possible to your chip and gun times.

Pause button pros

Here are some situations where pausing can be beneficial:

Workouts based on moving time

There are workouts that call for a specific amount of time that you need to be active, such as maintaining a specific training zone, and if you have to stop during one of these workouts it can be helpful to use the Pause button. This way you can more accurately hit the targeted amount of active time required to complete the workout.

Workouts based on pace or speed

If your workout calls for you to maintain a specific pace or speed, the data for how fast you're moving will be greatly decreased if you need to stop. Using the Pause button will help you avoid dragging your speed and pace data down unnecessarily.

Reviewing pauses in post-workout analysis

Did you know your pauses are recorded as part of your workout data? You can't see them on platforms like Garmin Connect, but we make them visible in SportTracks. They're on your charts and maps in the locations where you paused, and when you hover over the markers you will see the duration of the pause. You can easily turn off pause view if you don't want to see them.

Pause button cons

Here are some situations where pausing can be detrimental:

Forgetting to unpause

Glancing at your tracking device in the middle of a workout and noticing that it isn't running is the worst. Forgetting to resume a workout after pausing is definitely a downside, and something to be avoided at all costs. One of the great aspects of working out is being able to clear your head and let your mind go blank. Just don't let it go that blank.

You won't get to analyze recovery data

Every rest you take in an endurance workout produces informative recovery data. Little details like how long it takes your heart rate to decrease (or if it decreases at all) can tell you a lot about your fitness and show you signs of potential overtraining. When you pause you're actively deciding not to record this data and you will not have it for analysis.

It can skew your understanding of your abilities

Say that the majority of your workouts have lots of pauses and unaccounted for rest periods in them. If you're reviewing your workout data and trying to determine a target pace or speed for a race, the data you're basing these decisions on may not be representative of your true abilities.

A great alternative to pausing is to hit the Lap button at the start and end of rests. This way you totally avoid the horrible fate of forgetting to unpause, and your lap splits will have useful information about your speed and pace during active sections. Plus, if you make a mistake, SportTracks lets you easily edit your Lap button data. Thanks for checking out this post, we hope this information has been helpful!

SportTracks has lots of easy-to-use features designed to quickly show your important performance metrics. But what if you want to do custom calculations, summarize data into groups or combine with external data? With the new Export to CSV feature on the workouts page, now you can.

To export your workout summary info, to go the workouts page and click the Export button

After some time, a CSV file of your workouts will be downloaded to the browser that you can open in Excel, Google Sheets, Open Office or your favorite spreadsheet program. The workouts will be filtered by the search criteria you selected, using the sort order and columns of the table as it is displayed.

The exported data will look just like you see in the browser, including any unit conversion for distance, elevation, calories, speed and pace. If you're doing some basic analysis this can save you lots of time. However, if you want to do more complex calculations, you may need to extract the number data from columns to remove any unit labels, and do some basic math to convert to SI units such as meters.

You can do conversion with formulas such as FIND, LEFT, RIGHT, VALUE and FORMAT. Google is your friend here, there are lots of examples online to discover. Or if you're not a spreadsheet expert or are just doing a quick analysis, simply search and replace to remove unit information and give you raw numbers.

Once you have your data formatted as you like, it's simple to summarize by different descriptive columns such as location or sport, and then you're off to the races with the spreadsheet charting.

Top-of-the-line bike computers typically provide the largest sized screens, but this isn't to make them more immersive, it's the opposite. The larger screen lets you see the information you need quickly and return to paying full attention to riding — no squinting required. With the introduction of the new Edge 1030 Plus, Garmin has dramatically updated their top-end unit, so we wanted to examine exactly what has changed.

The physical design of the outgoing Edge 1030, which was announced back in 2017, is largely the same. This is likely why this is a "Plus" model, as opposed to being completely new. However, while the name and the physical design are similar, there are many meaningful updates that make this a major upgrade. The most obvious cosmetic change is that the 1030 Plus now has a black body, as opposed to the white 1030.

The majority of the changes to the Garmin Edge 1030 Plus take place under its exterior. The buttons are in the same place as the original 1030, and the screen is the same size, but the responsiveness of the screen has been greatly improved. This is because the processor hardware of the 1030 Plus has been upgraded, and the touchscreen display is substantially better as well.

The idea of having a touchscreen display on a bike computer is appealing, but only if it operates reliably. This was a point of frustration with the original Edge 1030 and Edge 820 bike computers; their touch displays were just too slow. When the updated Garmin Edge 830 was released last year, this story changed. The faster processor and more responsive touch display greatly improved the usability of the device. Similar improvements have now landed on the Edge 1030 Plus, and it's something you'll appreciate every time you use it. The touchscreen also works impressively well in rain and with gloved fingers.

Another way you'll notice the faster processing is when you're using the extensive navigation features. The new 1030 Plus can calculate routes much more quickly than the old Edge 1030. When you head off-course, an array of excellent new routing features kick-in showcasing the extra processing muscle once again.

When you're riding a course you've chosen and decide to make an unplanned turn to explore something interesting, take a rest at a cafe, or if you legitimately missed a turn, the new Edge 1030 Plus presents you with four options: Pause Navigation, Rejoin Route, Skip Ahead, and Cut Across.

The new Skip Ahead navigation feature on the Garmin Edge 1030 Plus

Pause Navigation: When you veer off-course, it doesn't mean you want to stop recording your workout. There's a physical Pause button on the Edge 1030 Plus, but pressing it will stop your fitness tracking, which you may not want to do. That's why the new Pause Navigation option is so useful. Select it, continue pedaling where you want to go, and record all of your metrics along the way.

Rejoin Route: This option does exactly what you think it does: it gets you back to your planned route where you left off. This way you can complete the entire ride you had planned. This option is best for wrong turns and short detours.

Skip Ahead: When you go off-course and decide that doing the entire original course you had planned isn't the most appealing option, the new Skip Ahead feature will route you to a later point in the course.

Cut Across: There are times when getting back to your starting point as quickly as possible is the most desirable option. Perhaps the weather has turned, or you're needed at home, etc. The new Cut Across feature will cut the course to get you back ASAP. Using this option in races is not recommend.

Mapping and Set-up

Mapping and navigation are huge selling points for this device, and Garmin has improved them by including multiple map sets with the unit. For example, when you buy a 1030 Plus in the USA, it comes preloaded with maps for North America and Europe. Its built-in memory has been doubled to 32GB, and you can easily add more maps by connecting it to your computer. The additional maps can be loaded with the Garmin Express application, they're free, and they include Garmin's Popularity Trendline heatmap routing. The original 1030 featured a micro-SD card slot to expand the memory. This has been removed on the 1030 Plus, but should be unnecessary now that the built-in memory is larger. 

If you're moving to the Edge 1030 Plus from another Garmin device, the set-up process has been greatly improved. You can now transfer all of your data screens and connected sensors without needing to start over from scratch. These features will also be coming to the Edge 530 and Edge 830 later this year. 

Other new goodies

Suggested workout: This is the first Garmin device that looks at your current fitness and recovery levels and suggests a workout based on this data.

Improved LiveTracking: Garmin devices have had live-tracking for a long time, but it hasn't worked reliably. The new Edge 1030 Plus has improved in this area, and it even shares your planned route with the people you send it to. These features will also be coming to the Edge 530 and 830.

Improved Speaker: The familiar beeps and chimes from the Garmin 1030 Plus are significantly louder and clearer sounding.

Mountain biking features: The Edge 1030 Plus comes pre-loaded with the Trailforks app and trail data sets, ForkSight navigation, plus a set of sport-specific metrics like jump data and others.

The Garmin Edge 1030 Plus is a top-of-the-line unit, and it's filled to the brim with features. It's got all of the capabilities of the Edge 830, including ClimbPro, Heat and Altitude Acclimation, external battery support, crash detection, a built-in bike alarm and more. The battery life is better, and it's just a better unit all around. It's also fully compatible with Garmin Varia radar systems, and you can later analyze this traffic data in SportTracks. The built-in WiFi on the 1030 Plus will sync your ride data the moment you get home, and it will be seamlessly auto-synced to SportTracks as well.

All in all, this is a compelling update, and makes Garmin's large-screen bike computer more appealing than ever. 

As we pointed out in our recent article on the new Garmin Edge 1030 Plus, larger-screened bike computers are useful for getting the information you need from short glances. But what about the other end of the spectrum — mini bike computers? They're great for:

• Cyclists who want to add the least amount of weight to their bike
• Fitting into tight spaces such as between aero bars
• People who want to spend the least amount of money while still getting a capable unit

With the recent announcement of the Garmin 130 Plus, the available options in this category just got more attractive. We often compare what new devices look like side-by-side with the models they're replacing, to clearly understand what's changed. But in this case it's an act of futility, as the exterior of the older Edge 130 model is identical:

QUICK NOTE: You can use SportTracks to analyze your V02 Max

There may be no new visual changes to get excited about, but the internals are a bit different. An accelerometer is now built into the new Edge 130 Plus (the old model didn't have one). This gives it the ability to offer Garmin's crash detection, which alerts emergency contacts if an incident is detected (providing that your phone is nearby and powered on).

The new sensor also lets the 130 Plus offer mountain biking dynamics, which are metrics for Grit, Flow, and Jumps. Grit rates the difficulty of a ride, and climbing increases it. Flow is based on forward momentum. If you brake less often when going downhill, your Flow score will be higher. After landing a jump, the Edge 130 Plus shows your Hang Time, Distance, and Speed.

Multi-step workout support

Another major upgrade is that the new Edge 130 Plus now supports structured workouts. You can easily create your own multi-step workouts in SportTracks (for example: warmup for 10 minutes, then do a 5-minute interval at a targeted power range, then recover for 2 minutes, etc.). As soon as your custom workouts are saved in your SportTracks calendar, they are automatically sent to your Garmin devices so you can ride them.

Garmin's ClimbPro: See the work ahead

Also new to the Edge 130 Plus is Garmin's ClimbPro feature. This is a screen that shows how much climbing remains on the course you've selected to ride. The steepness of the grades are shaded differently on the 130 Plus' monochrome display. It's useful for understanding how much more work remains on a ride. In a way it's like a real-time, in-ride version of the Automatic Hill Detection feature in SportTracks.

Bike trainer support

Another way the Edge 130 Plus is different from the old model is that it will soon be able to control an indoor cycling trainer and smart bikes, thanks to the ANT+ and FE-C protocols it supports. As of this writing this feature isn't live yet, but it will be coming soon in a firmware update.

The new 130 Plus also has some things in common with the top-of-the-line Garmin Edge 1030 Plus. These include the greatly improved set-up experience. If you're moving to the 130 Plus from a different Garmin bike computer, it will automatically transfer the connection of up to 20 training sensors (like power meters, speed sensors, etc.), to save you the hassle of having to pair them. If you had any customized data screens, they will be automatically transferred to the 130 Plus as well.

The Edge 130 Plus is also compatible with Garmin's popular Varia radar systems, which alert you to vehicles approaching from the rear. If you use one of these systems, like the RTL515, you can analyze Vehicle Count, Vehicle Distance, and Vehicle Speed metrics in SportTracks and see how the traffic influenced your fitness data like heart rate, power, and speed.

Final thoughts...

What's happened here is that Garmin added a new hardware sensor and software capabilities to their entry-level bike computer without raising the price. If you need head unit with mapping, navigation, and advanced metrics like nPower, then this isn't the device for you. But if you want an ultra-compact and lightweight bike computer that takes advantage of Garmin's rich ecosystem, the Edge 130 Plus is an appealing new option.