Running by Feel

We live in the age of technology, much of which can provide valuable information about our training. It has never been easier to share workouts and files between coaches and athletes, but along with technology comes an unnecessary reliance on it.

To start off, let me preface this by saying that I am a data nerd. I am the kind of person who gets a little frustrated when I forget my HR monitor for a run, it doesn't want to work, or if my cadence sensor on the bike is having a fit and doesn't pick up that day. Spreadsheets, numbers, times, distances, are my thing. I wrote my supplemental essay on my college application about how numbers play an integral role in my life. When a friend shared this article on Twitter the other day, I laughed at the workout personality given for my zodiac sign:

Aries
(March 21–April 19)
"You crave numbers like 'miles run' and 'calories burned.'
Watch out for: Wimpy workouts. They’re no match for your boundless energy.
The stars say: Indulge your need to roam with outdoor biking or inline skating—and don’t forget your stopwatch."

 In addition, my high school cross-country coach was quoted in the local newspaper as calling me the "mad scientist" on the team because I would know exactly how fast I ran on the same course or in the same workout the last time around and I'd know exactly what times everybody else had run recently. In track and cross-country I became the guy who got points the hard way.

On the trails, my sophomore year, I helped my team win an important dual meet against our biggest rival, and consequently to win our division, by a single point 28-29. I was the 6th placed finished for my team, but gave us the narrow victory by displacing the other team's 4th and 5th runners, adding 2 points to their score. Had I run just 6 seconds slower over the 5 kilometer course, we would have lost by a single point.

In the spring, little was different. My final season of high school athletics epitomized my way of helping the team. I wasn't an outstanding miler, half-miler, or even two-miler but I competed in the events that would help get the team points. In many of the meets that season it meant running a set of rarely combined events. My meet would start with the lead-off or anchor leg of our 4x800m relay, leaving a faster half-miler fresh for a later event. Then I would come back for the 300m hurdles, an event that was far from my specialty, but one that consistently brought the team points as I frequently took 2nd or 3rd in each meet. Finally, I'd return for the longest event on the track (3200m) and, again, consistently ran well enough to grab 2nd or 3rd place points for the team. At the end of the day, track and cross-country meets come down to a game of numbers, and running the right events certainly helped us in those close meets.

I digress, however. The salient point is that numbers are all around us, and there are many benefits to interpreting them. I frequently monitor my heart rate while running or, more often, my pace. On the bike I also look at my heart rate and cadence and average speed. While all of these numbers are important, and can provide excellent insight into an athlete's health, conditioning, and mechanics, they will tell you very little that cannot be felt at any particular moment.

• What's your heart rate? Well, how much effort do you think you're exerting?
• What's my cadence right now? Does it feel slow? Pick it up a little. You're extremely likely to know when it's particularly slow. If in doubt, shift into the next easier gear and spin a little faster.
• How am I doing on pace? Speed? This is the biggest problem with technology.

Asking yourself how you are doing on speed or pace demonstrates a dependence on running that particular pace. I have run 66 times this year so far. About 40 of those runs have been at an easy, aerobic pace. 40 runs in the past 5 months is more than enough to have a good idea of what pace you are running. If it happens to feel more difficult, so be it, if you fly through a long run, excellent! The worst thing you can do, though, is to adjust your effort based on the pace you are running just because it's "too slow" or "too fast" on an easy run.

A recent track workout that I did hammered the concept of running by feel home to me. My workout was 6 x 400m on the track at around 10k pace, or 85 seconds for each repeat, with 200m of easy jogging in between. I had done the same workout (with the addition of 3 x 800m beforehand) the previous week. Before this workout, my coach and I discussed the idea of running the entire thing by feel without looking at my watch, so that's what I did.

Here are the splits for the previous week's workout, when I looked at my watch:

• 400m intervals: 77.9, 80.3, 79.9, 81.4, 84.4, 77.0
• 200m jog rest times: 61.5, 79.8, 80.6, 86.0, 93.6

For the workout above, my goal splits on the 400m reps was 80 seconds, but after many of them, and especially the 5th run in 84.4 seconds I had to walk several meters of the recovery time. Below are the splits for the workout that I ran entirely by feel, not knowing my splits, and shooting for a "comfortable 10k pace":

• 400m intervals: 80.7, 81.5, 81.1, 81.4, 80.7, 76.5
• 200m jog rest times: 57.0, 57.9, 57.6, 61.5, 61.3

Oddly enough, by running entirely by feel my first 5 intervals varied by less than 0.8 seconds over 400m before running my fastest 400m from either workout on the last one. Additionally, my recovery times were incredibly consistent and because I was unaware of my 400m times I had no reason to doubt how I felt which, as was the goal, seemed to be relatively comfortable.

In the end, it comes down to our bodies to be able to get us from the start line to the finish line. All the data in the world can't help us get there, yet sometimes it seems that we let it seize control. Understanding the numbers is important, sure, but while you're running or cycling, the most important thing is understanding the machine doing all of the work - your own body. Trust that, and you might surprise yourself. I did.