A few days a week, I get up early, pull on my trail running shoes and hit a forested path about a 25-minute drive from my house. The soft surface loop can be extended to 10 km or shortened to 5 km if I’m in a hurry and just need a quick blast of stunning woodland scenery at sunrise before sitting down at my computer. When I get back to the car, I do the same thing just about every runner does these days – I hit stop on my GPS watch and take a minute to scroll through my metrics while I catch my breath.
Instantly, I can see what percentage of time I spent in each heart rate zone, my average effort pace and power broken down by minute, my cadence, stride length and more information than I could ever compute. Sports watches are getting more advanced by the day, and athletes from novice to pro can spend anywhere from a few hundred to over a thousand dollars to get what’s essentially touted as a mini coach that they strap to their wrists.
