How To Manage the Tricky Relationship With Your GPS Watch
Tips for enhancing your training
About five or six minutes into a run, my watch will beep with an alert that shows my performance condition. I’ve never been able to draw a conclusion from it, and it always seems to oppose how I am actually feeling. On days when I feel rested and ready to train, I’ll see a negative score. On days when I am dragging, it will show a high score. Initially, that score could throw off the entire run. I began wondering what I was doing wrong, or why I wasn’t getting better as a runner. I know a little better now that not every run is the same, and my watch doesn’t know what is going on in my life. Nonetheless, my watch is a valuable tool that I wouldn’t give up as a runner. If you’re in a complicated relationship with your GPS watch, these tips may help.
Focus on purpose
Each run has a purpose. Some days are geared towards building your aerobic base, while others are focused on speed. Other runs may have no physical objective at all but may be for clearing your head and enjoying time outside. In this case, mile splits or pace-per-mile stats may seem off, and that is okay. While your watch may say your training is regressing, the opposite could actually be happening.
By taking a moment to remind yourself of the purpose of each run, you can center your mind and focus on its objective. Is today an easy run? Then paying less attention to pace and more attention to effort can make your run more enjoyable and be a great reminder that not every run needs to be at race pace to be beneficial. You probably were running too fast anyway. Doing intervals? Focus equally on nailing your speed work, and recover accordingly. For everyday runners, each time out the door running makes us better, no matter what our splits may say.
Listen to your body
A feature that I really like on my Garmin watch is the daily run suggestion. It recommends runs that range from easy efforts to intervals and tempo runs. It’s a new way to train and mix things up. But sometimes, the last thing I want to do is an interval session after a stressful day of work, or after a night of bad sleep.
Your watch can’t possibly factor life into the equation. By all accounts, it thinks that you are training all the time, and you are only an athlete. This is far from reality for most runners.
Be mindful of what your body is telling you. If you just started a training cycle, your body may start to rebel against the increased volume and it may be best to take an extra rest day or do some cross-training. On the other hand, your body may acclimate well and want to run more (it can be addicting). Listen to your body, and it will guide you to the right place.
Remember your watch is a tool, not a coach
There seems to be an ever-growing list of features in GPS watches today. Running stats like cadence, stride length, and heart monitoring can help runners understand how their runs are impacting their training more than ever before. It has made watches a valuable tool for runners as they prepare for a race. But with all the bells, whistles, and training data, it is easy to forget that watches are a tool, not a coach.
Your watch is supposed to enhance your training, not control it. And like all data, its effectiveness depends on how it is used. Stick to your training plan, but use the data to check-in. How has your training affected your pace, projected race times, or overall fitness?
By remembering that your watch is a tool, we can have the best of both worlds as runners. We can train intentionally and have access to all the data to support our effort, but we can also enjoy the running and all of the other benefits that come with it.