A month ago or so I posted a thread on twitter that discusses my experience of using the Stryd footpod. I figured I would dump it in a blog post so that it doesn’t get lost. I’ve noticed various questions on twitter and facebook groups lately about the Stryd footpod and running with power. Questions that can easily be answered in my opinion, I will add some of those basic questions to the end of this blog.
So what is Stryd and what does it provide? Stryd is a hardware device, that contains many sensors, combined with an ML/analytics platform. The hardware device is a footpod, and it measures your output and running capabilities. That data is then analyzed and your specific training zones are calculated and race results can be estimated. These training zones can then be used to improve your endurance and pace using a single metric!
Stryd displays watts as their key metric, very similar to what a cyclist sees when using a power meter. The benefit of this is that you can use this “watt” metric to for instance pace a race, run intervals, or run a full workout at a particular effort. Of course, you could use pace ranges as well or heart rate, and people have been doing that for many years. However, heart rate typically takes time to ramp up, so during an interval the delay of the heart rate could mean you run in the wrong zone (too slow, or too fast). Pace ranges avoid that problem, but you’ll need to understand your capabilities extremely well to determine those ranges in combination with effort. This can be challenging for advanced runners, let alone beginning runners. [Read more…] about Running with power, using a Stryd footpod