n=1

Worth it. However, I have not had a success story in the traditional sense. I have yet to race, I have yet to see some glorious uptick in ability, etc.

The reason I say worth it is because I've had a horrible time with pacing hills since always, even on the easiest of runs. I bought it in hopes that it would help me with that problem and give me a little better understanding of effort level on intervals where the terrain isn't flat (i.e. most of my runs)... and eventually through correct training, I would see more speed.

Since I got Stryd, I've been able to 'pace' myself so much better. Seriously, its been really awesome just to go for an easy run and not see my HR jump. It's been really nice and I've been able to do more interval runs vs previously because I now know I'm capping myself at a certain power number. Doing so, keeps me from running too fast on hills, jacking my HR and creating fatigue that effects my next day(s).

If you're someone who doesn't have trouble with pacing and/or runs most intervals on flat terrain or track.. its just more data. If you're like me, it might be worth looking at.

As for getting faster.... we'll see. I'm still skeptical on that part but I'm only 2 months in... ask me again in 4. And personally, I'm the perfect candidate to show a success story. FOP swim/bike but can't run for shit in caparison to the guys I'm competing against.

i bought the last model and this new fancy one with "wind" factored in the power.

i dont have a lot of confidence in the consistency of the power output on average. i can run on a treadmill at a very controlled pace and reported pace will be all over the place on both models.

however i do feel that they are great for pace / cadence, and for some reason pace seems to be a lot more reliable a metric. i really like using it for pace on outdoor runs versus the gps on my watch. the pace is pretty much instantaneously updated whereas gps lags and even drops out depending on weather / tree cover / ufos.

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80/20 Endurance Ambassador

I have the version before the current one...Version 2?

I have nearly the same opinion about the power as you do but I don't use it to pace my outdoor runs, I still use GPS. I'm thinking maybe I should try your way for interval runs.

do you set your power to 10s. I find this helps me tremendously and doesn't fluctuate as much on t-mill. Similar to 30s on bike power meter. Not sure about variation on treadmill. Perhaps it has to do with power to push up vs forward. To much biomedical engineering math for my mind ;)

KL

I really like mine. I got it used mostly for treadmill runs and maybe some outdoor stuff. But now that I’m outside running it’s great. Living outside Chicago it gets windy so when running in a headwind pace is worthless so Stryd is great for that on top of pacing hills.

My plan is to follow one of their training plans this summer and see where it takes me. Going to run a few 5k/10k myself and use it to pave and see how it goes.

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I love mine and have had great results with it.

I have had tremendous success with Stryd. The power is very good to have and consistent especially on treadmills. I find watts and pacing to be pretty well correlated, and it's been a huge help on my runs to know pace, heart rate and the power at any given time. I use it just like I would cycling power. Easy day? 150-200W. Threshold? 300W. Then you can correlate heart rate to power once you've gathered a few months worth of data and can understand fatigue levels better.

If you are finding power is spikey on a treadmill, you have inconsistencies in your form. Stryd uses an accelorometer, so if you are not replicating the same motion with your foot on each stride it will vary power numbers as you are not putting forth the same, consistent power.

I attached some of my personal data to show this, top is treadmill, bottom is outside. Treadmill is quite consistent, while outside is fairly consistent with pace. Outside you jump over stuff and there are more obstacles, so power is expected to vary

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Strava

I initially got mine for Zwift running as I've always been peeved by treadmill pace being inaccurate, but have found the Stryd to be most useful for pacing.

You'd be surprised by just how hard you're actually pushing when going uphill during an easy run and this is where Stryd really helps. I was going much too hard on the uphills during training and that takes away from how effective the workout is. I prefer to train to the numbers, and race mostly off of feel so using the run power helps a lot with dialing in the specific target zones.

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Dominic Pollizzi

Used mine for about 15 runs now and I love it. Hills and wind are so much better to pace by power (really feels like a power meter on the bike). I actually look at power first during running, pace second. And more and more I don't care about the pace.

Since I gathererd some data now I want to improve my efficiency (same watts - more speed) by increasing running form / efficiency (my cadence is probably way too low and maybe some hip mobility) and leg spring stiffness.

Some say it's just more data and I agree that you probably have to be a data guy to get really into it. But like I said, I love mine, never looking back

Btw.. When buying look for some discount codes, there seem to be some around most of the time

I've had it for a while and I must say it is great with zwift if you are wuss like me and don't want to run outdoors in the cold during the winter. So for treadmill running, it's outstanding.

For normal running, I like it a lot because I enjoy seeing the data. But have I actually DONE anything with the mountain of data I have? Nope. Outside of zwift, the only real useful data for someone like me, who doesn't have a running coach who can make changes based on all the extra data (leg spring stiffness/vertical oscillation), is the power number for pacing and zone purposes. Which is pretty cool.

The major realization I have gotten is that when I run slow and try to keep my cadence high, I get a lot of vertical oscillation, which would probably be better if I converted that into forward momentum. Trying to look into that atm.

I am a user for 1.5 years now. Great training and racing tool! I recently upgraded from the non-wind pod to the wind version which is even better if you want to train consistently outdoors with hills or different weather conditions.

To me it really became as useful as a bike powermeter and I simply would not train without it.

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I don't have one but I've been thinking about getting one, mainly to get better insight into when I actually run efficiently. Would Stryd be a good tool for that?

It's a little hard to say. It's not like Stryd tells you straight out that you're running inefficient or not. It gives you numbers. I attached an example of my morning run today with some short 30 sec intervals. Things that I might be able to take from this:
- First set of intervals have been OK in power, worse in pace because of the wind
- The faster I run the less form power (also see FP ratio; watts to keep me upright and in line) I have to use which I guess points to the fact that there's quite a bit gap between my running form at easy pace and interval pace (this probably is completely normal though)
- Ground contact time is OK, could be better though (but apart from the intervals it was an easy run so yeah...)
- Cadence is low (don't need Stryd for that, watches have that already. Also I'm quite tall and it was mostly an easy run so might still be OKish)
- Leg Spring Stiffness did not significantly decline which probalby means no fatigue has set in
- Compared to other runs my RE Ratio steadily improves (used to be 0.33 and is now 0.30-0.31 for easy runs; I got faster for my easy runs so that alone makes me run more efficient)
- My Leg Spring Stiffness is OK but it's more about how it develops in the long term and there I see no progression. Probably would benefit from plyometrics or hills
- I'm trying to learn what difference shoes make but haven't had enough runs in different shoes

OR
- Could all be BS and it's just the way I run and that's as efficient as I can be at the moment ;)

There are Stryd podcasts and Youtube videos concerning possible analysis of the data, you might wanna have a look at that. Hope that helps

I have had a Stryd for a few years, and I really like it. I do not use it in training, but I have found that I run my fastest races when I run to a target power and do not vary much. It will calculate my "Critical Power" from either a manual test or from short races. I have used that and Stryd's calculation to get a target power for 10K and HM races. That has worked very well for me.

Thanks for all the comments so far. You're helping me over the cost-resistance. Two more questions:

1) What other electronics are you using to talk to the Stryd pod - I use a FR235 outdoors and Zwift indoors. It looks like the 235 will take power through a Connect IQ app, and Zwift can catch it through a dongle.

2) How do you adapt training plans to Stryd power data? I *think* that after some learning, Stryd will tell you what your power zones should be and you just follow them ignoring other metrics. If the plan said do 5 minutes @Z1, 45@Z2, 5@Z1 then you do that with the power metric instead of pace. Sound about right? The Stryd zones look to be generated more along the lines of The Sufferfest 4DP learning maximal power for multiple durations. FWIW, I'm a big fan of this approach.

Cheers!

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Munq

I track the stuff below. I think this is from Jim Vance's book.

I try to track my runs based on whether they are z2, z3, z4 intervals. For reference I've been using the 8020 plan. These are the parameters I follow. The first 1/2 are calculations (I found on someone's podcast several years ago) based on the second 1/2 variables. Obviously For the nerd in me, it just gives me more motivation to see in data form what I'm experiencing on the road. Helps me to stay with the program when I see improvement. Also allows me to know where I am compared to the past. To me it's no different than looking at past years and seeing what I was doing on the bike.

Efficiency Index (EI) Efficiency Index compares speed per watt. Speed is calculated in meters per min. Increases in value show improved efficiency


Efficiency Factor (EF) Efficiency Factor is the difference between normalized power and HRavg for the workout or selected work segment. Increases in EF shows improved efficiency


Running Effectiveness (RE) It is calculated as the ratio of speed (m/s) to power (W/kg or (Nm/s)/kg), resulting in the units of kg/N. It can be viewed as the inverse of the effective horizontal retarding force that a runner must overcome to achieve a particular speed. For most experienced runners, RE is typically close to 1kg/N. RE may be lower in novice or fatigued runners since the do not travel as fast for a given power output or must generate more power to achieve the same speed. RE may alos decline slightly at higher running speeds, when running above critical pace, for example.


Power (w/kg) Running power relative to body mass. Note that because of energy recycling via the series-elastic elements of the musculoskeletal system, sustained running power is often signficantly higher than cycling power, even for the same individula. On the other hand, due to the way the data is smoothed or damped, power at the very short durations is generally lower.Duty Time (%)As indicated above, shorter ground contact times may be associated with better running economy. Hoever, ground contact time vaires somewhate based on running speed, making it more difficult to interpret.


Duty factor, OTOH, is the percentage of teh total time between steps or strides that the foot is on the ground. As such, it somewhat less dependent on actual running speed. Values for duty factor can vary from 50-90 percent, but are typically in the 60-80 percent

Flight Time (%)This is the time during which both feet are off the ground. All else being equal, a greater flight time might be associated with better running economy, since at a given step or stride frequency, flight time and ground contact time are inverse to each other.


Stride RateAlso termed stride rate or, outside of the scientific literature, cadence.


Normalized Power (NP)NP is the estimate of power that you could have maintained for the same physiological "cost" if your power had been perfectely constant.

Form Power FP is essentially your "running in place" power. Decrease in your form power over time, when running at similar training speeds, is a good indication that you have improved your running economy. Highly trained and economical runners may already have near optimal funning form but can monitor how form power changes with fatigue.

Ground Contact Time (ms)Also called stance time, this measurement reflects how long the foot is in contact with the ground, starting rom the initial "crash" phase as the runner touches down and ending with toe-off. Values are typically in teh 150-350 ms range, although this varies somewhate based on runnning speed, etc. Ground contact time is of potential interest because studies in the literature suggest that shorter ground contact times may be associated with a lower metabolic cost to run at the same speed.

Leg Spring Stiffness (LSS)Think of your leg as a spring upon whihc your body "bounces." The stiffer the spring, the less energy you must produce to propel yourself forward with each step. this new metric measures the stiffness of the muscles and tendons in your leg. Increases indicate economy improvement over time.

My take:

• Pro: Works great for Zwift - far more reliable than the Zwift pod
• Con: Power seems somewhat made up. It just reverse engineers power based off speed and gradient. It does help pace hills, but it's kinda useless when switching terrains (road, gravel, dirt, etc.). I like to use it as more of a limiter to ensure I don't go too hard, but I wouldn't want it for racing

1) Devices: Galaxy 9, Huawei MediaPad M5, Garmin 945.
I've also used a Garmin 230, 920, 935.

I don't use running power data plans since I don't have much faith in it. If I did I'd be using Jim Vance's book, which I bought but never read.

Just about the only thing I use running power for is pacing the beginning of hills.

Thanks cmart and Old lungs!

Here's how I know running power is a bunch of hooey and apple sauce; I'm friends with a local pro, a sponsored guy. He was at one point paid by stryd to use their product and evangelize. Did nothing but say how great and useful running power was. Then they stopped paying him and since that day I have never once seen him run with a power meter. This is a guy who makes a living off running. If it was for real and something to help with improvement, he'd be doing it.

That's actually one of the things that I find most frustrating about Stryd. They publish a podcast, and in some of the earlier episodes recommend quantities that you should track over time. Well, if Stryd thinks I should be tracking certain values over time, why don't they show me those values (over time) in their app or web site? Instead (according to the podcast) I should copy the data that are available on the web site into a spreadsheet and calculate the important values myself!

100% agree. The powercenter is very minimal. Progression of RE and LSS for example over time would be obvious factors to show. As a software developer myself it's also very little work. The data is there, just needs to be presented in a reasonable way and I don't understand why this is not implemented yet

So here's my side to the story:

I live in Canary Islands which is quite hilly and windy - so Stryd from this part of the story works really well trying to pace yourself in the correct zone everytime and not only rely on pace/hr.
Like they've said before: stryd give's you data which either you or your coach must be able to analyze and relate to your zones and what are your working for.

In my opinion it has some issues which are a PITA:

- With the TP builder the watts show in "alarm" of each set but it doesn't have a gauge like if you do a paced program on the builder- they are working on it but i think for a product like this engineers should have worked over this
-App ain't very useful to search data and use the data. (or even change your weight for an accurate w/kg )
-You need someone who understands the data - not very intuitive.

Good points:
-It's consistent
-IT's tough - long battery usage and quite a lot of dirt and no problem
-fits well: no issues with it hurting or bothering

But i'll recommend it to anyone who lives specially on hilly/windy areas or wants an extra of information in their run.

Cheers!

Same here. After putzing around with the awful Zwift Pod...bit the bullet on this and haven't looked back. It works so well and easily transfers shoe to shoe (comes with 2 mounts so you can have it ready to go but adding it a different shoe takes ~20 seconds).

I "raced" an open half marathon for the first time with my Stryd on Monday and beat my best open time by 9 minutes so there's some success for you. Probably due to a different course and cooler weather than my last but I definitely feel more accurate with my intervals with power rather than pace.

Biggest gripe and this is more on TrainingPeaks/Garmin than Stryd but if I load a workout on my 945 from TP, the default goal screen for the interval you're doing does not display Stryd power which sucks. So I have to memorize what power zone to be in and use the Stryd data screen.