I treated myself to a new watch at the start of December, a Garmin Forerunner 245, and even though it is essentially an updated version of my previous watch (the Forerunner 235, which in turn was an updated version of my previous watch, the 225), I’m still in the period of learning about the watch. There are features I haven’t explored at all yet like mapping tools – all my runs this month have been local and on routes I am very familiar with, so I couldn’t see any benefits in using these tools just yet. Then there is information like Performance Condition, which feels completely incomprehensible to me. You get plus or minus numbers during the run which compare to a baseline figure which is generated from the first five or so minutes of the run, but although I understand that the higher positive numbers are the best, without understanding how the numbers are generated it feels entirely useless.
Training status reminds me on the first time I looked at heart rate data. It has the potential to be useful, but only within a broader context of what you are trying to achieve. Essentially it analyses your training programme as a whole and assigns a status reflecting the changes you should be seeing in your fitness. When I first used the watch, I was ‘Maintaining’ for about 10 days, meaning that my fitness levels were remaining pretty constant. Then I moved into ‘Productive’, indicating that I was getting fitter. However, over the past week, I’ve moved back to ‘Maintaining’ and then after today’s run into ‘Unproductive’. This suggests that my fitness is declining, a status which in different circumstances might be disappointing to see and lead me to make some big changes in my training. But not today.
I was already aware of the fact that my training hasn’t been particularly productive over the past week. My body told me that from how stiff it felt, both before and during runs. My scales told me that as it confirmed that I’ve put on a few Christmas pounds. And my bullet journal told me that by illustrating that a lot of my runs have been very similar recently. The occasionally icy roads have meant that I’ve been reluctant to do any interval sessions, as a fast pace and an unpredictable surface is a terrible combination, whilst the recent local flooding has made trail running difficult. There’s been a temptation to ease back completely, but I’ve resisted that partly because I’d like to run as often as possible whilst I’m off work, and also because I’m within striking distance of 2500km of running for the year (just 7.2km to go!) So, I’ve plodded on in the knowledge that once I’m back to work in January, it will be easier to focus on the structure of my training programme.
I think what annoyed me about the status of ‘Unproductive’ wasn’t what it said about my current training programme, but that I have a fundamentally different view of what a productive run is. A productive run is just one which improves your fitness, but can also be one where you enjoy yourself or learn something, and today was a tick in both of those boxes. The weather was nice and the overnight frost made off-road routes an option for the first time in a while, and the variety that brought was nice. Right now I feel like I’ll attack my next road run with much more purpose than I had during my last road run, though we’ll see whether my body is still quite so keen tomorrow.
There were times when I felt like Bambi on ice today, though not as you might expect on the actual icy sections of the route. Instead, it was the heavily rutted sections that were proving tricky today. Such sections are never easy to run on, but there is a knack to it and today I didn’t have that knack. My cadence was all wrong. Having done a lot of road running recently, my body wanted to settle into a consistent 175-180 steps per minute, but you have to be more flexible when you run off-road. Sometimes you’ll need to take lots of quick, short strides, other times you’ll need to lower your cadence and be a bit more deliberate about where your foot lands on each stride. I was already planning to do plenty of trail running next year, but today reminded me that it really needs to become my default option before June if I am to feel truly comfortable during Race to the Tower.