I was having a conversation with a pro runner the other day and I asked him what metrics he uses when he does his training. He wasn’t quite sure what I meant when I said “metrics” so I had to elaborate. I said - “you know - like do you use GPS for your pace and distance, heart rate, that sort of thing?” He responded that he pretty much runs with his GPS watch daily so he can track his distance and pace. “What about heart rate?” I asked. He said that he sometimes uses it for his tempo runs and threshold intervals. I then asked how he determined his training zones and to my surprise his answer was the following… “well I run about the same times in races that my teammate does so I asked him what his numbers were and then I just use those for all of my zones. It seems to work pretty well I guess.”  As a coach that likes to be a bit more scientific that response put me back on my heels. I don’t really like “guessing” when it comes to writing training plans. I then asked him if he knew what his stride rate was when he ran? Did he track his stride length? Did he find that either one of those numbers change at all over the course of his workouts? I swear to you that he looked at me like I was asking him if he knows how the second law of thermodynamics works. So I cut it there and didn’t even think about asking him if he tracks his watts.

After spending over 50 years on this planet one of the things that I have come to surmise is that you don’t really know you live in a bubble unless you actually get outside of that bubble and take a look around. I really find that to be true in daily life and even more so in sports. You don’t know what you don’t know and if you never go looking then there isn’t much hope for change. Runners definitely live in a bubble. They are always the last to change even in this modern era where change is happening all around us constantly.

Runners abhor change. They typically run away from new tech like it is the plague. When asked why they don’t embrace these things the response is pretty typical. “This way has always worked pretty well in the past so why change something if it isn’t broken.” Well I guess if all you are looking to get out of tomorrow is what you got yesterday then why not just hit repeat. It is definitely a philosophy in life, just not one that I think moves the needle. Such is the history of running.

Did you know that the heart rate monitor first came to be used as a training tool in the early 1980s? The 1980s!!!! However, it wasn’t with runners. It first took hold with the triathlete crowd. It makes sense as a new sport like triathlon had no dogma to adhere to. They could make it all up on their own and start with a clean slate to chase after the best results. From there heart rate training moved to cycling and many other endurance sports. It is now so prevalent in cycling that I dare you to find a pro rider racing in the Tour de France that isn’t wearing one. I would also argue that nearly every amateur triathlete that is racing in an Ironman has one on as well. Of course that is just one of the many metrics that they use to reach their maximum performance. However, for all of what we now know about training it still hasn’t fully been embraced by the running community. We are now over 40 years from the first patent for a wireless heart rate monitor and the majority of runners couldn’t tell you what their target heart rate is for their 10k race. That is pretty amazing with what we know about sports science and how much tracking and adhering to these metrics can help to maximize athletic gains.

As I sit here and write this blog I have hope that runner’s will turn the corner and start to embrace the advances in training technology. I think that the invention of the “super shoe” may have been the tipping point. It is something that is so opposite of what we as “runners” thought was important with a good running shoe and yet we cannot deny its aid in helping us to run faster times and recover so much quicker than with the paper thin shoes that we held on to for so many decades. I feel like these shoes are the wedge that holds the door open to further progress. Maybe now we can really dig in to heart rate monitors like the rest of the endurance world. After that it can be looking at cadence and stride length and maybe even watts for those of us that like to get in the weeds of things. I will save lactate testing for all until the day when the continuous lactate monitor comes to pass, but until then we still have a lot to learn as a running community. The good news is that many fast times are still in front of us and we will all be able to benefit. I will be ok with us runners as “slow learners” or maybe better to say stubborn learners as long as we as a collective do finally embrace it. This isn’t to say that we can’t enjoy a nice run in the woods free of all accoutrements when we need it, but if we are looking to push the envelope then we need to embrace that science is here to shed the light on the path.

Yours in Running,

Terrence