Current training plan

This year, I'm following a training plan of my own creation, the core of which is a four-week cycle with one recovery week.

Each of the three non-recovery weeks has a different focus, which mainly has to do with the type of long run:

• Week 1: mixed, with the second longest and second hilliest run of the cycle
• Week 2: distance, with the longest run of the cycle
• Week 3: elevation gain, with the hilliest run of the cycle

Each week has a mix of trail and flat running with:

• two trail runs (including one easy run)
• two flat runs (including an economy (EF) test)
• one Z2 or Z4 run, depending on the phase (base or build), on the trails or flat, depending on the week
• one VO2 (aerobic capacity) run with 30" to 3' intervals, depending on the phase (base or build), on the trails or flat, depending on the week
• hill or flat sprints, depending on the week
• form drills twice a week (on flat days or the easy day), one day with hill or flat strides (lighter versions of the sprints)

In total, six days of running, with the:

• second hardest midweek workout on Tuesday (Z4 or VO2, depending on the phase)
• easy trail run with drills and strides on Wednesday
• hardest midweek workout on Thursday (Z4 or VO2, depending on the phase)
• EF test on Friday
• sprints on Saturday
• longest run on Sunday

This plan is a mix of ideas from:

• Big Vert plan (Uphill Athlete), which I did last year
• Fast after 50 by Joe Friel
• The Happy Runner by Roche and Roche

The weekly focus and the mixing up of the terrain were my ideas.

Running goals for 2022

Be consistent

My number one goal is to train — to run — the whole year, without any breaks. By this I mean:

• not having more than three days for an injury or niggle

I did this in 2021. So let's see if I can do it again.

Get stronger

I.e. more injury resistant and better prepared to run fast and long. This means:

• keep doing leg strength, kettlebell and upper body work two or three times a week
• add in core work (once or twice a week)

I also have some upper body strength goals:

• 24 pullups in a row (currently at 20)
• 3' dead hang (two arms) (currently at 2')
• 1' dead hang on each arm (max. so far is 20")
• 75 push ups in a row (currently 59)
• 40 dips in a row (have done 30)

Get faster

My main events will be trail ultras, but I also want to improve my running economy and speed. So I'm going to try to:

• score over 70% on the age-graded percentages for 1 k, 5 k and 10 k as a 49- or 50-year old

Do more flat and fast running

To get faster and more economical, I'm going to do more flat and fast running than last year.

Last year I followed a vert-based, hiking-heavy plan. It served me well — I got though the ultras I did in one piece.

But I don't want to train like that forever, even if I only ever do ultras. I felt I got slower (or at least not faster) and less economical.

And besides, I like road running as much as I do trail running. I want to do both.

I also like doing varied workouts each week. Both in terms of speed and terrain.

Improve the training plan

To be able to do trail ultras and work on running speed and economy, I've come up with training plan that I can use all year round.

It's a four-week cycle with one recovery week. The runs each week depend on the phase (base or build) and the focus of the week (hilly, flat or mixed). The focus has more to do with the long run; each week has a mix of trail and flat running.

The goal for this year is to fine-tune this plan. Questions to answer include:

• Can I do hilly ultras in good shape (i.e. without muscle cramps and finishing) with a more running-focused plan?
• How much better can I get at doing hill and flat sprints by doing them all year round?
• How much can I improve my relative 5 and 10 k time by (I'm not going to get any PBs at this age)?
• Can my body put up with this amount of variation? For instance, I'm only going to do one hilly long run a month. Will my body be able to handle it and not get lower-leg niggles?

Focus on the plan, not distance or elevation totals

Last year I kept my sights on weekly, monthly and yearly kms run and metres climbed. It worked, 2021 ended up being my biggest year for both distance run and elevation climbed.

This year, I don't care about these totals.

Other goals are the aim: consistency, workout variety, speed, getting through the ultras well, resilience, long-term improvement.

But I will track the distance and elevation gain of the long runs to keep each type of long run in step with the others and build from month to month.

For instance, right now , the hilliest long run I've done had about 1000m+. So on the next run of this type, I'll do between 1250 and 1500m+.

Do ten or more races or time trials

I love doing races, and I love testing myself, wherever my fitness is at.

I also like running with other people, and racing is about the only time I run with other people.

So I want to make sure I do enough races and tests. That's what it's all about for me.

Ten's a good number as I did six last year, and the most I've ever done was nine, in 2015 and 2003.

Do the same ultras as last year

Out of those ten races, I plan to do the same ultras as in 2021:

• Ultra Montseny
• Ultra Pirineu
• Long Trail BCN

Plus at least one other:

• Els Bastions

The magic of drills

I've long been a fan of drills, but I hadn't run them for a long time.

But I'm back doing them at least twice a week, and they have reminded me of their magic.

I do two rounds of butt kicks, A- and B-skip, fast feet, side skip, high knees, carioca and a couple of new ones: ankling and straight leg run.

It was the ankling one that drove home the benefits of drills.

After doing this drill just once, I could feel I needed to loosen my ankles. They felt too tight in the air. The drill had shown me a weakness in my stride: too much tension in the recovery phase.

So whenever I noticed tightness in my ankles over the next couple of runs, I let my ankles go slack in the air. It felt much better.

But weeks after that first session of ankling, I don't get the feeling I should loosen my ankles anymore. 

Sometimes it occurs to me that I should keep my ankles slack. But trying to relax them doesn't make my running feel any different or better. Not like it did on the runs after the first insight.

It's like the drill taught my body what it should be doing, and my body got the message quick.

I'd had breakthroughs like this with drills in the past. The A-skip and butt kick. After doing these, I could feel where the drilled actions fitted into my running stride.

I'd emphasize the action of the drill in my running, and my stride felt cleaner. Then, after a couple of days, emphasizing the action didn't feel different anymore. Like what has happened this time around with ankling.

Are drills worth doing when your body knows the patterns they reveal?

I don't know, but I'm betting they are.

First, doing them must reinforce good form. Second, they are also a mild form of strength and plyometric training.

So I'm going to keep doing them, and look for new ones and new ways to do them to stimulate learning. 

Right now I'm working on high knees, the drill that I do the worst — ungainly and slow. If I can get it to not feel awkward, my running brain might learn something useful.

Big Vert comparsion: first vs second time through

As the table below shows, I did a lot more training in my second run through of the Big Vert plan.

Exactly:

• 46% more vertical gain
• 18% more distance
• 32% more time running
• about the same amount of muscular endurance (ME) sessions
  
• twice as many Z3 sessions
• over six times as many hill sprint (HS) sessions

But did it prepare me well enough for my race (the Ultra Pirineu, 100 km and nearly 6000 m+)?

Yes, definitely!

• I finished in a time within my target range, which admittedly was broad given I hadn't done a race this long before.
• I felt strong throughout, even at the end, running well on the last downhill and flat bits.
• I recovered quickly afterwards.

The plan itself, forgetting the races it successfully prepared me for both times, has also taught me how to train for hilly events and get used to doing lots of climbing.

What's next?

I'll probably use a hybrid of the Big Vert plan next year to prepare for similar or the same races, varying the terrain and adding in elements from Fast After 50 by Joe Friel, which gels pretty well with the Uphill Athlete philosophy.

I plan to do four-week cycles with one recovery week, one vert week (the most elevation gain), one flatter week (the most distance) and one mixed week (in between the vert and flatter weeks in distance and metres climbed).

Why mix up the terrain?

First, I want a bit of variety. I like running on the flat! And not just for recovery runs.

Second, I want to make sure I continue to develop or maintain my running economy and form, and you can only do that (I think) with some more intentional flat running.

The Big Vert plan was great for adapting my body to handle lots of elevation gain. But I don't want to be doing that kind of training forever, even if I'm only preparing to do hilly ultras. Actually, especially if I only do hilly ultras! In that case, I'd never get to run on other terrain and at other paces. My running would become one dimensional. Not something I can afford given the meandering paces I go at even when in top shape!

If I keep up the ME, hill sprints and other strength stuff, I should be able to get enough climbing stimulus in the varied four-week cycle to not fall apart on race day. And I'd do more climbing in the last two months or so before the race, especially in the race-specific long runs.

Alella Xtrail Xtrem 2021

The race

Organisation

10/10!

• perfect course markings
  
• friendly volunteers
• everything like clockwork and as expected

The course

A jagged profile with some nice views of the sea and Barcelona and some steep and technical sections on the other side of the mountain.

The last part of the race was fast (downhill and less technical).

Overall, the course was tough but fast for a half-marathon trail race with around a kilometer of climbing.

19.33km with 1065m+ by my watch.

My race

Slow but steady

I felt slow at the beginning on the runnable uphill slopes but strong on all the steep sections and especially towards the end of the race.

This slowness and strength are surely due to the type of training I've been doing of late: lots of hiking and strength work and hardly any flat running at more than recovery pace.

Fun going down

I felt surprisingly good descending on both technical and non-technical terrain. Surprising because I haven't focused on this at all recently, although I have done a lot of ginger descending. Who'd've thought that would help?

Even effort

I pushed pretty much right to the end, with an average heart rate of around 164/5 throughout.

My time: 2:11:31 in 70th place overall (28th in my category)

Optimisation versus mental toughness

The experts on training and running will tell you to get the little things right: to optimise recovery, nutrition, training and sleep.

However, optimising and getting used to having things close to perfect a lot of the time can make you a worry wart and collapse into a pool of silliness when things start to go wrong.

Take sleep, for example.

Say you organise your life to get fantastic sleep most nights. The day you don't get it — likely to be the day you most need it — you worry excessively that you won't be up to the task. If you're used to not always getting a good night sleep and doing whatever it is you have to do regardless, you'll worry less (and perhaps sleep better as a result).

And there's another problem. The things you do to optimise sleep can make it harder to sleep when everything doesn't fall into place and when you will probably most need to sleep as well as you can despite the circumstances.

If you need a totally dark and quiet room at the right temperature while wearing earplugs next to someone who doesn't snore too much, you will have a crisis the day you don't have these things.

In fact, when you don't have much stress, you should actually be training yourself to get by in not perfect conditions.

This applies to everything else — nutrition, recovery and training.

Of course, the main thing about running training is to avoid injury. So you don't want to skimp on optimising in that area. But don't worry if everything else doesn't fall in place every day. It's a good test and training in itself. Training for real life.

I'm thinking about this a day before an ultra for which I'll get at best four hours of sleep (I'll be getting up at 3 am).

Plus, there has been an added stressor with this ultra. With the regional government ramping up the COVID restrictions in the past two days (now we can't leave our county without a good reason as well as not being able to go out between 10 pm and 6 am), whether the race would go ahead and whether I could do it were both in doubt.

The race will go ahead. Although I'm still not sure whether I'm allowed to go as I'm not a "federated runner". This is a grey area that the organisers have not been able to give me a straight answer on.

However, it should be okay. Either way, I'm going. I'm decided now, but this has given me an extra thing to worry about and try to sort out over the last couple of days — sending emails to people, keeping an eye on social media and printing out forms for if the police pull me over at four in the morning.

As usual, conditions are not ideal. I did my last ultra on less sleep than I'll get tonight, and I've run and done other things countless times in similar conditions.

However, of late I've been so lucky with getting things like recovery and sleep right, that it's a rude shock to be back in the land of stress and little sleep.

So I think in stressless times I should push myself closer to the edge on a regular basis. I also need to do more things in my day. In fact, cramming more things in my day would be the simplest way to add stress when none is coming from external forces.

This would be a blessing in two ways.

First, I'd get more done.

Second, I'd get used to living further away from any state of optimisation. So when life gets in the way at key moments, I'd be much better prepared.

So in the future, less focus on optimising and more on getting things done and mental toughness.

Training done for Ultra Montseny 21

Premià de Dalt

 

From Monday, 30/11/20 until Sunday, 4/4/21 (one week before Ultra Montseny, 76km, 4374m+)

Figures

• average weekly elevation gain: 1772m+ (total: 31,896m+)
  
• average weekly time run/hiked: 7hr 31min (135hr 18min)
  
• average weekly distance run/hiked: 55.8km (1004.4km)
  
• average weekly total training time: 11hr 2min (running + strength, isometrics and cross-training)
  
• longest run (by time): 4hr 6min on 6/3/21
• longest run (by distance): 27.4 km on 20/2/21 (36% of race distance)
  
• biggest run (by elevation gain): 1531m+ on 6/3/21 (35% of race elevation gain)

 Not much intensity

• only did two hill sprint sessions
• only did two Z3 workouts (two more on the bike)

Mainly because of niggles; upping the vert turned out to be stressful enough. I had planned to do more as per the Big Vert plan I'm following.

Quite a bit of muscular endurance (ME) and lots of strength work 

• did a lot of strength work: improved calf strength out of sight (hopefully this will prevent injury); got back into squating and deadlifting; started single-leg exercises
• would have done more ME sessions if I'd realised they were supposed to be the building block for the Z3 workouts, i.e. as I didn't end up doing most of the Z3 sessions; I could have done more ME work instead
• isometrics to get over calf, Achilles and peroneal niggles (worked a charm and is my new secret weapon against tendon and muscle niggles)
  

Built up elevation gain

From averaging just over 1200m+ a week to around 1900m+ for this year. And I can now comfortably do 2500m+ a week. This would have been an overreach previously.

 

I thought I'd be able to up it to 3000m+, but at least I have that number well within reach for my next cycle of the Big Vert plan leading up to the Ultra Pirineu.

Three weeks to Ultra Montseny!

If it happens.

The curfew (from 22:00 to 6:00) might have to be lifted for it to go ahead.

Am I ready?

I guess so. My training has been hampered this week by a head cold and over the last couple of weeks by a slight foot niggle, but I've been consistent enough over the past few months.

I might not have done as much climbing as I would have liked. But this is because my body wasn't able to do any more. 

I am building up the capacity to do more, though. So I should be able to do more climbing in my next training cycle, building up to the Ultra Pirineu.

And I'm on track to have my best year ever in terms of metres climbed, hours run/hiked and possible even distance.

Just got to keep it up until 31 December!

 

New watch: Garmin Instinct Solar!

[UPDATE: I sent it back. It had a problem. It froze twice in the first four days of owing it. Apparently this is a known issue. I imagine Garmin'll fix it, but I didn't want to own one while waiting for the fix.]

Despite what I said here, I bought a new watch!

And it wasn't one of the watches I thought I'd get.

Why the Garmin Instinct Solar?

• It's got good batter life
• It's light and small
  
• It looks cool! (Eye of the beholder and all that!)
• I don't need the metrics it hasn't got (VO2 max, running dynamics and training effect)
• It's got swimming heart rate
• It's got an easy to read screen (no dark, sapphire glass a lot of high-end watched have)

 

An upgrade?

As I'm coming from a Forerunner 935, I thought this change might not feel like an upgrade as I'd be losing some of the metrics I had with the 935.

Granted, I never used those metrics and found some of them plain annoying. For instance, the recovery advisor and training load function. But in theory, the Instinct is a lower-spec watch.

But it does feel like an upgrade. Many of the standard functions have improved from the older 935 to the newer Instinct Solar, and there are new functions I like, e.g. the power manager. Even the body battery seems half useful, much more so at least than just sleep data.

My calf/Achilles rehab plan

Luckily, I've had a steep recovery from what I thought might have been a long-term niggle. I'm just about back to normal training.

The only things I don't think I'm quite ready for right now are long runs with lots of elevation gain and high intensity running.

From what I've been reading and hearing about tendons (this video is excellent), the isometric exercises I've been doing and continuing to run have probably been the key.

I'm even rethinking my weekly day off from running (again!). Apparently tendons need an almost daily load to stay strong and functional. I think this is even more important as you age because the signal from training is weaker.

So it might make sense to run every day, even if just for 20 minutes on what might otherwise have been a weekly day off.

Of course, it's vital to be ready to take a rest day at the drop of a hat and rest upfront when you do get something more than a niggle you can run through.

Anyway, this time I'm not going to stop at just getting back to where I was before. My calves are obviously a weak point, so I'm going to make them and my Achilles stronger.

Calf/Achilles plan

1. Calf raises and holds a few times a day (already doing)
   
2. Keep running and get back to normal training (the Big Vert plan)
   
3. Heavy lifts a few times a week (e.g. 4x8 single-leg calf raises) with other leg training (e.g. squats and deadlifts) (start next week)
   
4. Skipping and other plyometrics, building up to the single leg jumps as explained here (maybe start this week)
   

 

Recovering faster than I thought, and happy I've discoved a weakness

Running didn't feel that great yesterday morning --- probably due to the physio session the day before. But my Achilles felt good later yesterday. And today it was heaps better. I barely noticed anything on my run this morning.

Calves: my weak link

According to my physio, the calves work hard when going uphill. It's basically the glutes and calves going up and the quads coming down.

Out of these muscles, my calves are surely the weak link. So once I get over this injury, I'm going to work though the progressions on this page to make my calves stronger.

I've always avoided calf exercises because they seemed to cause niggles. But precisely for this reason I probably should have focused on them.

I've started doing static calf holds four times a day (5x45" with a 15" break) in line the progression outlined here. I think it is already helping.

Rehab for increasing pain threshold

In this podcast, the researcher/physio interviewed explains why exercises help rehab.

It's not just to make the muscles stronger and hence more resilient to injury. Apparently doing exercises also increases your threshold for pain in the area worked, and this also makes you more robust. 

Fascinating!

It makes sense from my experience.

Oftentimes, calf niggles and tweaks seem to be from oversensitivity --- an overreaction to a brusque movement that no way could have caused damage and obviously doesn't most of the time because the pain's gone the next day.

So calf raises and skipping, here I come!

Reactive Achilles tendinopathy, apparently

That's what my physio told me today. Probably from the change in training to doing more climbing.

His instructions were to cut volume and elevation for a week or so and then start building slowly. Also to do isometric calf holds. I found some good resources online for progressing these. This page, for instance And this podcast is really good on tendon injuries in general.

So I can still run.

I'll keep to the flat for a while, but I may take some time off. I really don't want to make this any worse. Although apparently I should do what I can to make sure the area doesn't get weaker.

My physio and the Internet tell me pain should be my guide: do what doesn't hurt too much or makes it worse within 24 hours. Then build from there.

I'll swim and cycle, too.

Just when I thought I was feeling good...

Oh look! An Achilles or calf injury!

Which is why I wrote this running injury protocol post.

What injury?

Left Achilles, but fairly high up, so it might be a muscle.

There is a painful-to-touch lump on the side of my Achilles, though. Not sure if it has been there since I did the injury on Thursday or if it's from today's hike.

What now? Throw the kitchen sink at it:

• See if I can run on the flat (tomorrow or Tuesday)
• Rehab exercises from today (calf raise holds to start with)
• Lots of leg and other strength training now that I'll be running less if it all
  
• Cross-training (swim, hike, bike and kettlebells)
• Physio if I can get an appointment soon
• Patience. At least I get to start again!
  

Running injury recovery protocol

For everything from:

• niggles you get over in a week to serious injuries that drag on for months
• relapse injuries to unfamiliar pain

Not for things you know are nothing.

Disclaimer: this advice is for me. It's based on my experience and what I've read, heard and seen. I'm not an expert of any kind.

1. Rest up front

• One to three days (straight after the injury)
  
• Light cross-training only, if anything. Resist the urge to jump into heavy cross-training. Let your body direct all its resource to healing. Also, cross-training may confuse pain messages
• Up or maintain usual protein intake
• Apply ice (even if just to reduce pain)
  
• Possibly tape (if it doesn't confuse the signal)
  

2. Find a starting point for activity

 Running or endurance cross-training

• Find a relatively pain free starting point for the most running-similar activity possible that you can do nearly every day (i.e. running, run/walk, hiking or walking; e.g. 20' running with breaks every 5', 60' hiking or 45' easy running on the flat)
  
• Two indicators for this point:
• Pain not worse or better at end of run
  
• Pain not worse or better 24 hours later
• Supplement the running or running-like activity with cross-training if necessary (i.e. you're doing hardly anything)
• If you can't do a running-like activity, cross train until you can
  
• If you can't cross train, rest until you can
• Tape as necessary
• Train consistently (every day if possible)
  
• Build up training to normal running

Lower-body strength training

• Find a starting point for general, running-specific and rehab strength training
• Rehab exercises probably won't be necessary for niggles
  
• Train consistently (every day for the rehab exercises)
  
• Build up to normal strength (for serious injuries or weaknesses you discover through niggles)
  

Other training

• Right from the start (in the first three days), turn up the volume on body weight and kettlebell training: pullups, dips, snatches, Turkish get-ups, swings, cleans and presses. This will give you another focus
  
• Strength training and exercise in general may trigger protein synthesis. So training another body part may help heal your leg or foot injury
  

Tendon versus muscle injuries

• Muscle injuries can cause more pain in the beginning but will heal quicker. So pain can be a good guide as to when to restart activity
• Tendon injuries may hurt less early on, but the pain can last longer and will often still be there when you can run again. So don't pay as much attention to pain with tendon injuries once you are training consistently and building up sensibly

Niggles and light injuries 

You may discover after a few days rest that you don't have anything serious. This should be the case most of the time if you take days off whenever new, sudden and unfamiliar pain occurs.

If you only have a niggle, still follow the above protocol. The manageable starting points will just be toned down or adapted versions of usual training until most signs of weakness have gone. This may only be one day.

The problem with recovery weeks

They're in just about every plan you find, and everyone says you should have them. But should we schedule recover weeks? Maybe it's better to let them happen by de facto when you have a niggle or some other commitment stops you from training as you normally would.

Last week I was feeling great. But it was a recovery week, so I held off from running on a couple of days and kept my long run short.

I had this feeling that I might be wasting an opportunity to get in a good week. Who knew what would happen next week?

Lo and behold, next week has come along, and I'm struggling to hold it together.

First, an adductor strain because I was too keen with my cross-training, and today a strain in my lower left calf that might mean taking a day or two off.

So maybe last week I should have done a normal long run and even hill sprints.

You never know what's coming!

I'm not sure what to do with this information. But I think it goes back to listening more to your body.

But then you can feel really good, do more, get injured, and then look at your over zealous ramp and see that as the problem.

But perhaps there's a way to both things.

Follow a plan loosely, make sure you don't make any big jumps, but always understand that even the next workout isn't guaranteed. You might have to cancel it because of a niggle.

And don't stop if you don't need to. Maybe just wait until you get a niggle to take a couple of days off.

Picking up niggles while cross training: Fail!

That'll learn me! Too much breaststroke on sore muscles = adductor niggle.

I was eager to train some more on Tuesday afternoon. I couldn't do my ME workout because my legs were still sore from a leg workout I did on Sunday (starting again, hence the sore muscles).

So I swam some laps.

I ended up doing lots of breaststroke, probably too much. I just wanted to stay in the pool longer! Later on I noticed a niggle in my always weaker or at least overstressed left adductor. Fail!

It was nothing serious and is now gone (on Thursday). But it did mean I couldn't do the ME workout I wanted to do yesterday.

Lesson: Take cross training easy when it's for recovery, especially on sore legs when doing a movement you don't usually do!

Relaxing legs and feet while in flight

Tip five in this post is to "Keep lower legs loose".

This was something I always wondered about. Should I relax my feet and ankles while they are in the air?

Apparently, yes. I should.

I should go even further and identify other body parts higher up in the chain that may be tensing to compensate.

I remember back to when I first started to become mindful of my body when running. I realised that my feet were tensed up like a fist and I was in fact nearly running on the side of my foot.

Although I've gotten a lot slower since those days of running tense and with pain a lot of the time, I've improved at least in this respect. Quite a lot, actually. 

My feet fall flat and are more or less relaxed. But I'm sure there are some areas of tension left to discover and release.

Are calf raises too specific?

And are they necessary? I mean as a strengthening exercise for running.

Having strong and healthy calves is a good and necessary thing for running.

But I feel calf raises may be too specific an exercise. I've tried doing them at different times but have always given them up as they cause twinges and tweaks other leg exercise never seem to.

Can you train your calves enough doing more functional strengthening exercises like squats, dead lifts, and step ups? And why do calf raises bother me?

Maybe I just haven't done enough of them.

The problem with Stryd (and perhaps running power in general)

Useless on trails and steep hills

The main problem I've found with the Stryd running power meter is that it's useless off road and on steep hills, where the reading Styrd gives is inconsistent with effort on the flat.

So it's useless for trail running.

Meh on the road

Styrd is consistent on the road and rolling hills, and I used it to train for a marathon, but it's no better than pace, for which it is just a proxy anyway.

It's not even as reliable as pace.

When I was training for that marathon, for some reason a few weeks before the race, my RE (running efficiency) improved out of sight. This changed my power numbers, and threw all my power thresholds out of whack.

I recalculated them, but I ended up using pace on the day.

But pace or time is probably always going to be the smartest metric to target on the road. Because, after all, pace or time is the real world thing you are measuring your performance with.

Why muddy the waters with a proxy?

So Styrd's useless for the trails and not any better than pace on the roads.

Why use Stryd then?

Wind, hills and distance

The new version takes wind into account, so this might be useful for adjusting effort in blustery conditions. Although I have no idea how accurate the wind factoring is.

Styrd says its pod is good for pacing on the hills. But again, pace should get you by in this case. And the pace reading on your watch doesn't lag as much as the power number does --- despite Styrd's insistence it's instantaneous.

Apparently Stryd is more accurate than GPS for measuring distance. I have no idea whether this is true. 

Regardless, one use case I've read about is using the pod with your watch in a GPS-battery-saving mode to make your watch last longer. The Stryd eventually dies, but you'll have more charge left in your watch than you otherwise would have.

Don't believe the hype!

Despite what Stryd say, running power meters (indirect proxy measures concocted by algorithms) are not just like power meters in cycling (direct measures).

Unless they can perfect the algorithms so running power meters are consistent on the trails, no revolution will happen.

Would I buy another one?

Probably not. It's too arbitrary and inconsistent over differing terrain.

Yes, I am getting mountain stronger!

What I suspected in my last post has been confirmed this week.

I did my longest muscular endurance workout yesterday evening with and increase in weight, and I felt fine during it and even pretty fresh on my run this morning.

Niggles mean something! Who'd've thought?

I'm also seeing how wise it was to take days off here and there a few weeks ago when I was getting seemingly random niggles.

They were frustrating, but they certainly weren't random. It looks like my body was asking for a bit of rest so it could adapt to the new stimuli.

In hindsight, it's obvious. But at the time it wasn't because I didn't feel tired, fatigued or even sore. I just got tweaks and niggles out of the blue. (Of course it wasn't out of the blue because I was doing new things.)

Now I see that these niggles meant something. I was right to heed them. 

In my usual short-sighted way, I thought I'd never get through them at the time. I thought I'd have to scrap the training plan. But now I see how small a setback those niggles and few days off were.

Let's hope I can remember this for next time.