Reading Your Data
Fitness trackers they are all around us from Apple watches to Garmins to Fitbits, our daily lives have been taken over by watching our steps and tracking our workouts. Because if its not on Strava, did it really happen? So now you have all this information from your day, your workout and it's made its way to Strava. What do you do with it now? How will it improve your running?
It all depends on what you want out of your data. Are you looking at low heart rate training, doing a tempo run and needing to watch your pace or are you simply wanting to be faster and comparing your pace times. There are endless possibilities on how to interpret your running data. When you start running an easy way to monitor your progress is by comparing your average pace times at the end of a run. A great way to do this comparison is either running a mile and comparing mile paces or running a 5k and comparing 5k paces. For example you start your running journey at week one with a mile run, you run it in 9 minutes and 32 seconds. You do the same run week 4 and run it in 9 minutes and 10 seconds. You can see from your time/pace you are getting faster and seeing progress. Now this is an easy example of looking at one data point but what do you do when you are looking at time, average pace, heart rate, zone running, and distance.
Once again depends on they type of training you are doing but I can explain using the training method I use for myself. I personally use low heart rate training which is comparable to zone 2 training. This is where during my runs I attempt to keep my HR below a specific number 154 (180-your age) this is the highest your HR should be during the run. When looking at the data for low HR training I am looking at my average HR throughout my runs and at the end of my run. I am looking at how far I ran compared to where my HR is during the entire run. During my runs if my HR goes above 154 I will slow my pace down or walk. After my runs I look at my where a majority of my HR is throughout my run and the average. I then look at this average over time and see if it is decreasing and if my pace is increasing. This is a good indicator that you are gaining fitness and using your data correctly.
All this data can be very helpful in achieving your goals. Look at it on a graph, graph it yourself and of course post it to Strava.
