Running Power – Some Updates From STRYD and Golden Cheetah

I get a ‘feeling’ that STRYD has successfully scaled the first peak of their adoption into the market.

I had a quick visit to the STRYD dashboard today (I don’t go there often) and there is now the connect facility to Garmin and Suunto. A strange space to the right awaits to be filled ! As you can see…

It now makes PERFECT sense to have these links with Garmin/Suunto/Polar.

• The STRYD app/data field in Garmin Connect IQ can now write to a FIT file after Garmin recently and finally enabled that.
• Suunto’s new SPARTANs also have out-of-the-bag running power support.
• Polar are very likely to be working on a proper power profile over and above the existing capability

On the hardware side we also see STRYD expanding:

• STRYD also produces some of Garmin’s original Advanced Running Dynamics metrics
• STRYD can cache data on its pod (I’ve not tested that).
• There’s a new foot mounted STRYD (Gen 2) on the market as well with new metrics like ‘leg stiffness’. Nice, although I’m not so keen on the aesthetics.

I’ve been playing a bit more too…

I’ve started using the STRYD again and it really saved my race last weekend when I realised my Garmin footpod was not properly configured. Grrrrr. So no accurate instant pace. But I just ‘happened’ to know what power level to run to and just ‘happened’ to have that metric easily displayable and just ‘happened’ to be wearing the STRYD for research purposes….oh yeah, PB/PR baby…..that’s another story.

Indeed another story would be that some KONA-2016 pro-athletes used STRYD Gen2 and an analysis of that is <here>.

I also updated my version of Golden Cheetah to v3.4 Release Candidate <here>. That was partly to sort out something I’d messed up but I thought I would install it and then go and moan on the Golden Cheetah forums about the lack of Critical Power Curve support in running. Except I couldn’t because the Power Running Support was there!!! PS: Golden Cheetah is awesome, download it. Free! An absolutely 100% must-have for any bike/run power user. Do it now.

Who needs to do a Running CP test when Golden Cheetah works it all out for you…like this:

Once the curve is updated with a bit more data you have your PB power pace for any running duration. And of course you can do the math for example for “85% of CP” easily enough for training.

Running Power seems to be going a bit more mainstream too in the literature. Joe Friel has the 4th edition of his Triathlon Training bible out in November 2016 (UK here and US here), no doubt there will be some run-power reference in there as there is in other run-power books hitting the market like the one from Jim Vance <here> .

Summary:

Running power data is actionable and mostly seems good to me. I’m not a ‘fan’ of it per se but I am mostly convinced that it ‘has its uses’. It seems that some high level athletes and coaches do too.

The hardware capability has evolved on the current model and is expanding into new models with new metrics. The metrics have evolved and will no doubt continue to do so. The online dashboard and app are looking slicker. 3rd party support is growing. People are writing about it, even people that know what they are talking about (Joe Friel 🙂 rather than me)

It’s all looking good.

What could possibly go wrong?

Other than Garmin bringing out a competing product I reckon they are good to keep growing.

Good times for STRYD.