Stop Obsessing Over the Data
The 14th Edition of your favourite running newsletter
Welcome back to your weekly dose of run chat.
A quick read of insightful tips and thoughts to help you with your running.
21 years ago, Garmin released the world’s first GPS running watch, the Forerunner 201. A revolutionary piece of kit that marked the start of a huge shift in how runners train and race. Since then, running watches and wearables have come a long way. But with this new technology comes new challenges.
Something to Think About
Wearables are great. They give us a huge amount of information that can be helpful for anyone looking to improve their running. But we can often find ourselves obsessing over the data on our wrists. Although it can be helpful, it’s important to remember your watch doesn’t know you as well as you do. Take the data with a pinch of salt and always remember to stay in touch with how you feel.
Something to Ask Yourself
Is your fancy watch taking some of the joy from running? How does it feel when you come back from what you thought was a great long run, to be told your training’s “unproductive”? Do you frequently check your heart rate on a run and get frustrated if it’s not where it’s “supposed” to be?
Is your watch an assistant to guide you through your training, or are you a slave to the data?
Article of the Week 📄
In this week’s Article, Ali Nolan tells an extremely relatable story of how she went from obsessing over the data pouring from her watch and causing injury, to trusting herself, her own perception of how she feels and ultimately finding flow and joy in her running again with a more care free attitude.
Track of the Week 🎶
I want everyone to love The War On Drugs as much as I do. They’ve just released a live album and you should listen to it. This week’s Track of the Week is:
Harmonia’s Dream (Live…Again) by The War On Drugs (2021)
Personal Lesson
When I started running, I had a Casio watch which I’d use as a stopwatch. After each run, I’d manually plot out my route on MapMyRun so I could get my average pace. This meant I was out there just running by feel. Back then, I certainly didn’t know how to train properly, so I wasn’t approaching my running in a productive or sustainable way, but I was happy. None of it was public, I was the only person looking at the data, and I was in tune with how my body felt.
Eventually, I got myself a GPS running watch. Before too long, I was completely obsessed with the data from my watch. Stride length, cadence, heart rate, pace, distance, elevation, it all mattered to me far too much. As my knowledge of how to use the data increased, so did my obsession with it.
But the pendulum had swung too far the other way. I went from having limited data and loving my running, to having loads of data and criticising every aspect of my training.
The technology that’s become available to runners in the last 20 years is incredible. But it can pose real risks of ruining your relationship with the sport. For me, it took a few years before I craved the sense of freedom I got when running with my Casio. Much like Nolan in this week’s article, I started to care less about the data, and more about just being out there and moving my body. I now believe I strike a pretty good balance, and have a good relationship with the data on my wrist.
Running – Life’s Metaphor
With all the data and information to dissect, we can sometimes become too self critical and risk focusing on the wrong things. It’s always important to focus and reflect on the things that should make you proud of yourself. Practicing positive self talk. That’s the metaphor I’ve managed this week 😉
Final Thoughts
We live in a completely different time now than when Garmin released the Forerunner 201. If we want to, we can have an extremely accurate picture of our progress, with dashboards on an app breaking down the data from months and years of training. Whilst it’s fun (trust me, I love a bit of data), there’s a very real risk that we get too obsessed with what our devices are telling us and forget to stay in tune with how we feel.
It’s important to remember that no device is going to give you 100% accurate data. Sometimes the GPS will be a bit off, the Heart Rate monitor will be inaccurate, and almost always, your watch is making guesses about you to paint a full picture on the app.
Don’t lose your ability to tune in to how you feel. There will be plenty of times when you need to prioritise sleep, for example, and your watch or wearable won’t know it. Maybe you’ve rolled your ankle and your watch is telling you your “fitness is decreasing” because you’re not training. Don’t be a slave to your watch. You know you best, trust yourself.
If, recently, you’ve found yourself a bit too obsessed with tracking everything. Try going for a “naked run”. Take your watch off, don’t track anything and just go out and run. See how you feel when you’re free from the pressure to run at a certain pace, with a certain HR, and a certain distance. Just go outside and enjoy moving.
Thanks again for reading and subscribing.
Run the runnable, and keep showing up for yourself!
Tommy 🙂