The Trouble With Data
It’s no secret that we have more data than ever at our fingertips these days but is it helping us or hindering us?
Your Garmin and Training Peaks is spitting out Pace, Power, HR, HRV, EF, IF, VI, GCT, TSS, Pw:Hr
It’s confusing at best.
Let’s have a quick chat about the challenges we face with the endless stream of data. Then at the end I will give you the basis of how to handle all the nuances.
The RPE mismatch
You get up in the morning. It’s been a decent week of training. You have done everything right. But you get on the bike and suddenly the RPE mismatch appears. The power is T1. The heart rate is T2. The legs are T5. What do we do !! There’s numbers flying around in your head and you just dig into the prescribed power and grit your teeth.
Terrain
The session in training peaks says Ride Aerobic for 75min at T2. You roll out of the coffee shop and start the ride. Immediately you encounter your first hill. Power is T4. RPE is “comfortable”. But the heart rate is T2. Are you in the right zone? 3 data points screaming at you. You back off the power but T2 power is impossible up that hill. What do you do?
Heart rate lag
You have 6 x 800m T4 efforts on the track with 1:30 rest. The pace comes easy immediately. You want to push it and the heart rate is still in T3 areas. It’s not until the last 200m that you start seeing T4 heart rates. What do you do ? Your pace was probably over, your heart rate under and RPE was great.
Heart rate drift
The program is calling for a 90min endurance run at T2. So you head out into the trails. Everything on track. Pace is good heart rate good. But 60min in the heart rate is drifting upwards. It’s a hot day and you aren’t carrying hydration with you. Pace is holding up nicely sitting in T2. You feel great with low RPE. But all of a sudden the Garmin says the HR is now in zone 3.2. What do you do? Slow down ? You could, but then the pace you wanted is flying out the window. You can’t match the pace you are chasing in the upcoming race.
Fatigue
You are in week 3 of a training block. You hit the trainer. 4 x 8min at sweet spot. Too easy. Erg is on so power is being looked after. HR is dialled in and behaving as it should. But your legs are starting to ache. You increase cadence. That feels better but now the higher cadence has pushed the heart rate up.
The high heart rate athlete
There’s a few of you around. T2 pace, T2 RPE, T4 heart rate. It does your head in. You feel like you could run at that pace all day. What do you do? Keep going at that pace or slow down?
The low heart rate athlete
That diesel engine athlete that sits 20bpm below you when you are running through the trails. What do they do? Their heart rate barely nudging the numbers and they are running at 4:20 pace. What do they do? Do they speed up and smash their legs just to get their HR data higher or do they just sit and enjoy their run at that pace?
So what do you do?
You have to use common sense !
I wish there was a magic answer but in the end you have to apply your common sense.
Every single scenario above is part of your world. In a race even moreso. So you have to get good at making commonsense decisions to set a pace. To balance out the numbers. Don’t be pig-headed. Know that the numbers are just guiding you and your pacing intuition.
Target mid zone numbers but use your zones. That’s why they are there. Target mid-zone T2 for that aerobic run but realise and be okay with moving up and down in power, pace and heart rate.
The truth is, your numbers are a guide, not the gospel. The athletes who thrive are the ones who know when to trust the data and when to trust themselves.