Running I still wear my 735 and I watch the pace and my heart rate

No swimming here right now, but when we go back in the pool I will be watching the wall clock while wearing my 735 to record the workout. I'm old school and looking at a watch while swimming is just not the way it is done.

I went for a 50 mile bike ride last night and started out watching power but ended up watching everything else. I still averaged just over 17 mph but I spent a lot of time looking at houses, business, and other things that I used to be too busy to notice. I seem to be doing that more and more when I am riding by myself. My average power was 71% of FTP, so not a great bike workout, but an enjoyable bike ride.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

No problem. It all I’ve ever really done. I’m a product of the 80’s, and still train by feel. I do use my Garmin to track time and miles, but not for performance data. I just want to make sure I get about 20 hours a week or so. I’ve never owned a power meter or HRM. Last year I bumped my Garmin on the rail, entering the water at IMAZ... knocking it off the triathlon screen. With my watch out of the equation, I ran the entire race by feel, and PR’d by 6 minutes.

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Athlinks / Strava

I know we used to train and race by feel and effort before we all had fancy gadgets to measure everything. Anyone ditched that stuff and trained IM or 70.3 distance and how did it go?


Welcome to the way we all trained 25+ years ago! :-)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

That's not entirely true. We had big clocks at swim and track workouts 25 years ago, for sure.

My stuff is more of an afterthought. I still wear the tech for logging the workouts but I'm not doing anything that requires looking at the data during the efforts. Every once in a while, I'll think that something felt fast or slow and check that hypothesis versus the data, but it's more of a point of interest than an obsession like in training days past.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

That's not entirely true. We had big clocks at swim and track workouts 25 years ago, for sure.


LOL - True! And don't forget your Timex IRONMAN wrist watch. After 2 hrs on the bike . . . time to turn for home! :-)

Full disclosure, I have been for the past year, using a Polar Vantage M - to track HR and use the GPS feature on it for my cycling. It's on my wrist, so I'm not looking at it constantly while riding - I still ride by feel. Download and look at the HR data afterwards.

As for the GPS - I do like the mapping features - both in the Polar Flow app and of course in Strava

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I'm 98% like this.
Except... swim and bike, I'm using it for distance - like the other day I did a 5 mile OW swim... I would have stopped at 4.97 without the watch to let me know I needed to put in another 40 seconds to make it clock over to a round 5. 4.97 would have sounded so lame by comparison 😁

You rode for almost 3 hours at 71% of FTP. How is that not a good ride? Weren't you in the exact power zone you should be in for that long of a ride?

I'm not trying to be snarky, I am genuinely interested in the answer. I try to keep most of my riding in the 60-70 percent of FTP range unless I am doing intervals or hill repeats.

I'm wearing my watch, but it's really just for logging purposes, and I have the autolap set to remind me to drink, otherwise I'll go for an hour without anything (then pay for it later). I do want an actual bike computer, again, just for logging, not really to look at while I'm riding.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I live and ride on Long Island. I rode last night at 3:30 and finished at about 7:30. So I didn't ride 50 miles in 3 hours and average 70% FTP. I covered 50 miles in 4 hours and my average moving FTP was 70%. It might seem like semantics, but that makes a big difference. On that same course on a Saturday morning when I'm in hammer mode my average FTP will be up around 80%. Most of that is due to coming off stoplights a lot harder and stopping a lot shorter, combined with less coasting in some areas.

I spent almost an hour setting at stoplights and moving through traffic last night. You would need to go for a ride with me sometime to truly appreciate with it is like to ride a bike in this area at 5 pm on a week night. It is not for the faint at heart. There is one point where I have to turn left at an intersection that has 3 lanes going straight in each direction, a lane turning right and 2 lanes turning left, onto a road that has the same configuration. There is a bike lane on both roads by the way.

I turned left from the bike lane on the far right side of the road when the left hand lanes got the turn arrows, so I crossed in front of 3 lanes of stopped traffic and 6 lanes of crossing traffic at the same time 2 lanes of cars were turning the same direction from both sides of the intersection, into another bike lane, and I did it without blinking an eye.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"

Me too

It was so cool when Avocet came out with the "Cyclometer 20" in 1985. Allowed you to see how fast you were riding, how far you rode, and how much time you'd spent on your ride. All you needed was a pocket calculator and you could figure out your average speed for that ride. Had a goofy "transmitter ring" that you had to snap onto the front hub, and of course you had wires spiraling around the right fork and the brake cable. No power. No heart rate. No FTP data. But still a big jump in "technology".

When "Map My Ride" and "Map My Run" came out, (1990?), I figured it couldn't get any better.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Did a long run yesterday where my battery had emptied the last hour and I did not like it at all.
Afterwards I had the feeling I got too fast-> I use heartrate to stay in lower zone 2.

I have noticed more often that when I do not look at my HR I tend to go too fast, especially on my long runs.

I had a Cateye Solar around that time :)

I quite miss my $30 Timex Ironman watch. I raced in that thing for years and even did a few 140.6s....with....gasp....no mile splits and/or data beyond the time!

The new tech is pretty sweet but easy to get lost in. I've been doing things mostly by feel this year. It's freeing but I'm also ready to get back to data driven training in 2021 if the world cooperates!

Training by feel is archaic. I use the tools available and just because there is an ongoing pandemic doesn't mean I will go backwards too.

I love my garmin 920xt and can't wait until my DW gets me my a 935 for my BD (*I hope).
Fancy gadgets and higher level training has improved my fitness exponentially.

Metrics rock! The more the better.



Just my opinion....

I’ve been riding off road for a couple of years now and haven’t raced in as long. While I miss racing and intend to get back to it, riding without metrics and just “exploring” is kind of liberating. See a section coming up you want to attack? Go for it! Want to just pedal along and take in the scenery? Great! It’s a nice change of pace.

There was always a time and place for fancy for me. Yes I raced with power, yes I trained with power but there was plenty that I didn't use anything too. Enjoying the process, which I believe helps people with longevity, is half the battle. I wouldn't say I have removed the gadgets since Covid, they just aren't as critical. More or less just a time/distance thing.

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Same here....I'm recording data but I don't really care about it at this point.

I have a watch, chrono only. Don't need all the gadgetry.

Yup, I'm a huge fan of not tracking. It's been months since I even uploaded anything to Connect.

I do like having mileage handy riding so I will use a computer, but there are times running I don't wear a watch at all.

Swimming in local gravel quarry. Just wear a watch to know how long I have been out. Nice to see the fishes on the bottom and just swim along. Same bike and run routes just go by time except once in a while try to put in a fast mile to see how fast I can go at a good effort running. Not idea how it will affect races.

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I don't wear any type of watch or carry a phone when I run.

For cycling, I have a bike computer but I only use it to track mileage and for navigation if on unfamiliar route. I usually just have the time of day displayed during my rides to get a sense of how long I've been riding. I don't do workouts/intervals and don't have a PM or HR monitor.

I have always trained more off of feel...then when all the gadgets came along I just used them as a more accurate measuring stick, which really just confirmed kind of what I already knew.
I am actually using gadgets more this year then ever before though... with no racing it is my "race" against myself, so the numbers are my win or lose on the day... ;)

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