Baggage wrote:
Some super basic questions, here: How much attention do you devote to training by feel?
Is it something you do alongside your training devices?
Is it something you do despite your training devices?
Do you think it's a useful skill? Do you wish you were better at it? Do you think it's not pertinent at all in the age of devices?
Thank you!
I'm going to be awkward and say none of my training (or racing) discards either feel or more objective data. Everything uses both in combination. So the either/or nature of your questions doesn't really fit. So my answers would be:
- 100% of my training is performed somewhere on the spectrum between "feel with reference to metrics" or "by the numbers with adjustments to target figures applied on the fly, taking feel into account".
- Yes. Devices alone are too simplistic and thus inferior, while feel alone is vulnerable to inconsistency, misjudgment, and misses the opportunity to use additional motivators.
- No, if used correctly there is no conflict. Feel and metrics supplement each other.
- See above. You can't switch off "feel" and regardless of devices, you are compelled to take it into account. Resisting this is a bad idea. Using "feel" as an excuse to go easier or harder than planned and undermine the session is also a mistake. You can leave the devices at home if you wish, (and maybe this is what you actually mean?), but you can never leave "feel" at home. Using devices to provide metrics can calibrate your "feel", and that calibration is still at play when the metrics are not present.