speaker-0 (00:02.646)
Welcome everyone to this first episode of Still Running. We're so excited you're here with us on this journey. This is a podcast all about training and ambition and hormones, being moms, running as women who are aging, all of the things that shape how we run and train. We're Ashley and Tracks and we're 10 years apart. We're in different seasons of life, but we're still asking a lot of the same questions about our bodies and training and how to keep doing the things that we love. So

Today, we're starting with a really big one about wearables and technology and data and how to sort out if our watch is telling us the truth or ruining our lives. This episode and all of our episodes are going to be like a long-run conversation where Trax and I sort through issues together and then bring in experts to help us make sense of it all.

Somehow we did it. We made it here. We're recording. This is our first ever show. We've established we're both on our third cup of coffee. Is that right? Our third cup. I'm contemplating a fourth cup, like, but I don't think I should do it. And also right before we got on here to record, I pulled up my sleep score from last night because I obsessively track my sleep. Of course, the moment I wake up, I open it and look at it. And I haven't had very good deep sleep in the past few days. Have? I've not. What is your sleep look like right now?

speaker-1 (01:21.91)
You have. you have not.

So I'm hanging by a thread.

speaker-0 (01:29.57)
You're hanging by a thread. Why?

speaker-1 (01:31.606)
I just spent four wonderful days in Arizona. I was at a coaching clinic and learned from some of the greats, but I got back last night around one AM and between that and the time change and the altitude and the fact that I'm fifty-one, I am not at my best right now. Probably because of the travel, probably because of the altitude and the fact that I had a lot of things working against me. My sleep has been garbage.

Mm. And I also track my HRV, which is heart rate variability. I'm sure you're familiar with it. That is at a solid negative downward spiral right now.

speaker-2 (02:08.803)
And that

speaker-0 (02:13.07)
Okay, wait, let's pause just a little bit because you and I both know what HRV is, but yeah, for everyone who may not, I know it's heart rate variability. Like what else do you know about it?

speaker-2 (02:22.019)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (02:23.906)
Let me tell you what it is, and then I'll sort of break it down a little more. HRV, heart rate variability, specific measurement of the variations of time measured in milliseconds between each of your consecutive heartbeats. So while your heart rate is your average beats per minute, your HRV measures the fluctuation of that rhythm.

speaker-0 (02:38.126)
Okay.

speaker-0 (02:45.302)
Interesting. Okay, I'm talking with you. So you're saying that yours is low, maybe not a good thing.

speaker-1 (02:49.816)
Correct. So according to everything out there, right, a higher HRV is what we're going for. That's that indicates that you are recovered well, you're fit, all the green lights.

But in addition to that, you should be checking the consistency of the range that your HRV falls in. So you're really hoping to have that number, whether it be fifty, thirty, or eighty, stay within that range. And when you start popping up and down all over the place, that's your red flag.

speaker-0 (03:28.93)
Hmm. Okay, so I need to pull up, I need to look what my choros has been saying, so I can look at mine too. I'm just curious now, like, what was yours last night?

speaker-1 (03:40.312)
So my last night was

speaker-0 (03:44.334)
Twenty five.

speaker-1 (03:45.666)
Which is yeah, borderland dead.

speaker-0 (03:49.304)
Twenty five.

speaker-1 (03:51.416)
Twenty five.

speaker-0 (03:52.534)
Okay, well mine was low last night too.

speaker-1 (03:56.59)
Twenty five.

speaker-0 (03:57.598)
Mine was twenty two. But that could be 'cause I was sick?

speaker-1 (04:00.031)
speaker-1 (04:03.574)
That is because you are sick. That is because you are sick.

speaker-0 (04:06.592)
My month average is forty seven. What's your average?

speaker-1 (04:10.84)
Let's check that out. Thirty.

speaker-0 (04:15.288)
Thirty. Okay. So like a little bit higher.

speaker-1 (04:19.51)
Little higher, but not much. Now granted, experts say age is a factor, so I have that working against me, given that I'm fifty one. But I still think it seems pretty low, if I'm being honest. And it's not consistent.

speaker-2 (04:34.563)
Yeah.

speaker-0 (04:38.976)
Yeah, looking at mine, I have some pretty significant inconsistencies. like I have some times where it's elevated like 65 or so. and from what I can tell, and like the research as I understand it, and also like this is straight from Google, so I am not an expert on this. It seems like HRV is like to your point somewhat personal. and there isn't one number that's considered good for everyone.

But if you have these big swings in your baseline, that usually indicates like maybe something is going on that shouldn't be. so that's interesting. So if it's too high or too low outside of your norm, that could indicate there's maybe like some sort of issue with recovery or illness or maybe accumulated fat. Yeah. Which based on how we both started this episode

speaker-1 (05:20.259)
Yep.

speaker-1 (05:32.766)
Something bigger is probably going on.

speaker-0 (05:38.092)
I feel like there's something bigger going on for both of us.

speaker-1 (05:41.752)
Exactly. I would agree, although I would also caveat that I also feel like that almost every day.

speaker-3 (05:50.561)
So

speaker-1 (05:53.518)
So how do you differentiate between the big and the bigger?

speaker-0 (05:57.654)
Okay, but let me ask you this. Knowing that you have this low number for your heart rate variability, like, how do you feel about that? Like, what's going through your mind?

speaker-1 (06:06.786)
Well, it's interesting that you asked me that. Okay. Let me give you a little situation. This past winter I was training for the Boston Marathon. And when I got to March, marathons in April, my HRV started to fall steadily. And I basically had a combination of a very busy work schedule, a travel, a trip, which I went to Spain to visit my daughter. I ran a half marathon. And

Between all of those things, it was the perfect storm of anti-recovery for me. And despite, you know, coming back and despite coming back and trying to give my body some rest and focus on recovery and back off on workouts, I was not bouncing back. So every day I would check and every day it would be low.

And I started to get really frustrated because I'm getting now pretty close to the marathon, you know. And you know, all signs are pointing to you're not gonna have a good race if I really read this data and treat it the way, you know, that research says I should read it. So I I stopped looking. I took I took off my band, I stopped wearing it, I stopped tracking my sleep, I stopped tracking my HRV.

Because I was going to run Boston, regardless of what that number said. And I decided that having a number that negatively sat in my head prior to lining up was just not worth it for me.

speaker-0 (07:47.598)
So did it help? I mean, getting rid of everything and just ignoring the data? I'm sitting here like, I look at my data every morning. Like, I don't know if I could do that.

speaker-1 (07:55.584)
I know, I know. It was a big deal to take it off and really let go because I'd been doing it for years, if I'm being honest. Wow. but it but also it freed me a little bit. I stopped thinking about every morning waking up and seeing a number and determining how my day may or may not go, how a workout may or may not go. So I made it to the marathon with no time goal.

Obviously, because I had been struggling and felt sort of tired and not myself and decided to just run it, you know, based on feel and it was wonderful. It was truly one of my best marathons and I've run thirty nine.

speaker-0 (08:38.144)
Really? Okay, so is your conclusion from this like two things. One, sometimes you just have to ignore the data and the data's wrong. And two, maybe your HRV even though low actually isn't a bad thing.

speaker-2 (08:39.171)
Yes.

speaker-1 (08:47.725)
Yes.

speaker-1 (08:54.732)
Yes, so my conclusion is exactly that. Don't always trust the data.

speaker-0 (08:59.288)
Yeah.

speaker-1 (09:00.642)
But also what is a low r HRV? Like s this is this is what I want to dig into a little deeper. Like, HRV is not a scientific number. It is provided, it was created by wearables. So yes, it's a data point, but it's not backed by science.

speaker-0 (09:24.024)
To help us understand what HRV actually measures and whether we should be letting one number on our watch determine how we feel about our recovery, we called Rachel Pajetnik. Rachel is an exercise physiologist, a researcher and science communicator who studies exercise, muscle health, nutrition, and recovery. She has spent more than 20 years working with athletes and has a particular talent for translating complicated science into information that

all of us can actually use. Let's chat with her now.

speaker-1 (09:59.734)
I wanted to dive head first into HRV. So we know its heart rate variability. We know what it means, but can you take us a step further? How was it created? Who created it? Is it backed by science? Like give us the lowdown.

speaker-0 (10:15.554)
It doesn't even matter.

speaker-3 (10:16.782)
I'll put you.

speaker-2 (10:17.678)
This is a really important question. HRB is actually it's an old metric. It was developed decades ago for essentially as a diagnostic for cardiovascular health and specifically for fetal health, which is really interesting. So heart rate variability is essentially the amount of space that's in between each of your heart rates, heartbeats. And so

speaker-1 (10:19.862)
I'm kinda scared to hear that answer.

speaker-2 (10:46.966)
When you have ever watched something like The Pit, or in our day it was ER, and you have that beep in the background that is indicating that person's heart rate, you probably heard it as kind of a very perfect metronome of beating, right? When in reality, there's actually ever so slightly different spacing in between each of those beats. The more spacing, the better.

as it turns out. And so interestingly, they were actually able to do an ultrasound and listen to a fetal heartbeat to figure out how is this you know, baby developing in the womb. And also it was an indicator for maternal health as well. And so that's was originally where it started to be used. It was used in cardiovascular diagnostics for a long time. And then

The wellness industry starts coming along, and researchers started to come along and use this tool to understand stress. Because as it turns out, it actually is a very good indicator of stress in your body, both physical and mental stress. So the more physical or mental stress that you are under, the less space that occurs in between each of these heartbeats. It starts to get much more regular.

Which is a weird way to think about it. You would think regular is normal, but it's not. The more regular it becomes, the more stressed out your body is actually experiencing. Bizarre. Yeah, it's bizarre. But here but here's the thing. This is really important. And this was kind of one of the things that I was trying to get across in that post. Just because you're stressed doesn't mean

speaker-1 (12:24.504)
No.

speaker-2 (12:37.036)
That your performance is going to be affected. It doesn't mean that something is wrong. It doesn't mean that you need to fix something. It just is an indicator that something is actually changing the autonomic nervous system in your body, right? I'll give you a really good example of how this can be really misinterpreted. So I've studied war fighters for several decades.

And probably 10 or 15 years ago at this point, they did a study on pilots. And the pilots were being assigned to go out onto a really stress-inducing flight. It was a practice flight, but they were being asked to do something that was really challenging for them, right? And you can imagine flying a fighter jet is probably in and of itself fairly stressful. And

What they found, which was really fascinating, is that those people that had a lower HRV actually performed better, which was not the hypothesis when they went in.

speaker-0 (13:43.682)
Right. Wait, clarifying question, Rachel. So lower HRV meaning like having a twenty. Okay.

speaker-2 (13:48.322)
Lower number. The lower number. Right. So having a twenty as opposed to a forty. That's right.

speaker-0 (13:53.91)
my gosh. You're on your way to apparently

speaker-2 (14:01.292)
Reason for that is because humans thrive actually in stressful situations, right? You've experienced this before, right? You've had to present in front of a room or compete athletically and your heart is beating and your stomach is gurgling. I like to call it butterflies flying in formation, that feel right? Yep. Those butterflies flying in formation will tank your HRV. Absolutely tank them.

That doesn't mean that you can't perform. It means that you're feeling stress. And when we look at stress in human beings, what we actually see is that stress is quite beneficial for humans. We call it hormetic stress in the work that I do in exercise and in muscle research, where if you're an athlete or somebody that exercises, you know it's kind of hard, right?

If I was to make your HRV while you are exercising, it would also go down. That number would go down because you are experiencing stress. Eventually, it rebounds when that stress is alleviated. But that doesn't indicate that something is wrong with you. It doesn't indicate that that stress is going to impact your health long term. It just basically means pay attention.

So I don't know if you saw this a couple of weeks ago at the Golf Open, they actually had a whoop band on Rory McElroy as he was walking up to one of the most important shots, one of the most important putts of the day. And everybody thinks these athletes are just cool, calm, and collected. They've been doing all their mental training. And they showed that his heart rate was something like 140 beats per minute as he's walking up to make this shot and his heart.

Rate variability was absolutely again down in the the the dumps, right? And again, all it indicates is that this man's under stress. Like he wants to win this golf match, right? Golf turnaround. And so you have to be thinking about all of these numbers in context. You can't just look at them and say, something is bad, something is going sideways. It's really important to understand what the environment is so that you can interpret those numbers.

speaker-0 (16:19.574)
Okay, you're touching on something really interesting that I want to dig into because this also makes me think about this idea that like when you're really stressed about something, that indicates that you care about it and you are oftentimes going to perform better, perhaps, because that's just a way, like if you can harness that stress. So everything that you're saying makes sense also from just like an emotional or psychological perspective. But I can't help but think.

that that makes sense for a short duration of time. But then if you have that low number that perhaps is showing a high level of stress over a long period of time, like that could be problematic from a physiological perspective, right?

speaker-2 (17:03.15)
That's exactly right. So this is really important when I talk about context, right? So if you are standing at the starting line of a race or you're about to give a speech to a really important group of people and you see those numbers really start to shift around, okay, fine. Because as we mentioned, tracks just a moment ago, it will eventually come back into your normal range. However, we do know that chronic stress is quite detrimental to people. Being in that

Distress side of the stress curve for a long period of time can start with fatigue experience. You can eventually start to get sick, right? You're more apt to get some kind of an infection. We know it can lead to mental health disorders, things like burnout, right? And so if you're seeing that number linger in those lower bars, that's when it's time to really pay attention.

But the other thing that I think is really important to call out here is that it is also going to be in the context of that individual. So one thing that you said tracks that I think is really important is, you know, my number is normally in the 40s. If you went and started to talk to friends and they're like, well, my number is normally in the 80s, you might say, What's wrong with me? Like, why is mine only 40? When for you, 40 is totally normal, right? It's d it doesn't, there's no

diagnostic or or a range that you should be in for HRV, the problem arises when your 40 becomes 17 for two weeks in a row, right? That's when we start to see problems, is because you are noticing that this stress is in fact having now a more chronic effect on your body rather than just simply standing at the line of a race that you're excited. Sure.

speaker-0 (18:53.112)
Can I ask a follow-up question on that? Because when we were comparing these and Trax was bringing her numbers to and I was like, well, let me look at mine, because like I haven't paid a lot of attention to it. And I noticed moments where it was spiking up like a lot higher than normal. And I started reading a little bit about this. So this may be completely not accurate, but I started thinking, well, maybe if it's spiking up higher, like maybe that's the same thing. That's periods of stress or not enough sleep. Like I have really small kids, I don't sleep through the night.

Like is the opposite true too if you're stressed when it's low, it could also indicate stress or some issue if it's higher than normal?

speaker-2 (19:31.448)
Could be a couple of different things going on. So the first thing that could be happening is that you you're actually living in kind of like a chronic stress zone and then you got a couple of nights sleep.

speaker-0 (19:40.456)
no, that's not what I want to hear, Rachel.

speaker-1 (19:42.742)
Let's be honest, you might be, you might be. Yeah.

speaker-2 (19:45.722)
The number might actually normally be sixty, but you're kinda cruising around forty and then every now and again it spikes to sixty 'cause you

speaker-0 (19:52.014)
I'm gonna look at it. Yeah, because you did it. Yeah.

speaker-2 (19:55.862)
That you didn't have a stressful day. The other thing that I think is really, really important about these devices is that they are not accurate all the time, right? So something to pay attention to is the actual device that you're using. If you, for example, sleep on it funny and it's pressing weird, or you have a temperature change that's really wild in your bedroom or whatever.

That can actually give you some false numbers. So seeing spikes here and there, what I would probably think is that it's actually like device malfunction rather than you necessarily having some kind of acute physiological response. So that's also really key because think about all these devices. They they're they're called photopletismography devices. And what they do is they shoot a little bit of light through your skin.

So that they can understand what's going on with your heartbeat, right? Some of them monitor temperature, like Aura Ring will monitor temperature. Some of them give you an indicator of your sleep and your sleep phases, and we can dive into the complexity around that in just a moment. But all of those different places where you're capturing that data on your body could also be problematic. So let's say, for example, you were a band.

let's call it a whoop band or a garmin or an apple watch. If you are a hairier person, the fur on the backside of your arm can actually impair that reading because it literally gets in the way of that beam of light. If you are a dark skinned person, that can also change the way that you are experiencing the way that the light is able to penetrate through your skin.

If you get it turned around on your wrist where it normally is on one side and now it's on the other, you're gonna get a different reading. And so all of these things matter in the context of how you interpret that data. One of the things that we're realizing is that the ring is actually a little bit better for the consistency of the data collection because the skin that's right next to your

speaker-2 (22:20.366)
blood vessels is is very thin in your finger as opposed to on your wrist. And also the melanin on the palms of people's hands tends to be a little bit more standardized. So less melanin, if you look at the palms of people's hands, most of them are are not as dark. And so that light works a little bit better through the finger than it does in the wrist, which is also, for the record, why you can't compare device to device to device.

So let's say tracks you wear a wrist device, let's say you have a whoop or a garment and Ashley you're wearing an aura ring, your metrics actually can't be compared to each other because they're being collected in completely different ways.

speaker-1 (23:03.21)
So given that and given who uses them, the everyday, athletic, conscientious, you know, knowledgeable, should we not be tracking it?

speaker-2 (23:18.094)
Like I said, I went back to analog. I do not have a tracker anymore after taking a deep dive into this, but I do use it in my research. I I I I trust the numbers. As long as I'm using the same device within the same software package over a period of time that I can control and I know that the people are wearing them, I do trust them in the sense that there are metrics that I will use for my research.

speaker-0 (23:40.782)
Rachel, why don't you trust them? Why did you go analog?

speaker-2 (23:44.312)
For me, I'll tell you, so this actually goes to Trax's experience. It was driving me crazy because I was chasing that number two. And I know better. I know better. And so for me, I would wake up in the morning and for me for specifically, it was about the sleep metrics. I am a terrible sleeper. I'm a light sleeper. I have a partner that rolls around all night and snores, right? And so for me,

I would wake up every morning. It was like, you've slept like holy hell. And I'm like, I'm aware. Thank you. It's that feedback. and so for me, it became sort of like mentally toxic, where I was chasing that number every morning. And I would go to bed the night before, being like, tonight's gonna be the night. I'm gonna sleep great. I wake up in the morning, I'm like, I'm feeling wonderful. I slept terrific. And my ring was like, You've slept terribly. You've got seven minutes of deep sleep.

speaker-1 (24:15.286)
This is every day.

speaker-2 (24:38.028)
Meanwhile, I'm listening to all of my colleagues in the sleep centers at Stanford being like, you need at least 60 minutes of deep sleep. And I'm like, Am I getting 60 minutes of deep sleep? But here's what they told me, which was also really helpful and also one of the reasons why I took it off. All of those sleep stages that are also being reported are proxies as well. So we actually don't have, short of being in the laboratory underneath the direct supervision of a scientist, a

Good way to actually measure different stages of sleep because it has to be measured really tightly and then checked by a human being. We could probably use AI now, but checked by a human being to really understand the waves of sleep that are happening inside of your brain. If you're wearing an a ring or a watch, it's just a proxy based upon temperature, heart rate.

Little bit of heart rate variability. And every device has their own algorithm. So your device is not comparable to others. So when I went to my sleep specialists, I got Jamie Zeitzer and Sherry Ma out here at Stanford and I was like, Am I dying? They're like, take your ring off, girl. Like, take your ring off. You're fine. it's driving you crazy. So that's why I took mine off.

speaker-0 (26:00.276)
You're everything you're saying is making me think, you know what? I need to ditch my watch at night too. Because I wake up and I obsessively look at my sleep score. We talked about this earlier. and it does get to the point where I have had moments where I let that dictate how I feel. I'm curious if you like the day that you mentioned, you woke and you're like, I feel great. And then you look at your sleep, your

And then you look at your sleep score and it's garbage. Did you somehow change how you felt psychologically? Like you're like, actually wait, I I actually feel bad. I was wrong.

speaker-2 (26:33.346)
Yeah. Yes. A hundred percent. It it happened to me all the time. And then I saw this one study by a researcher out here at Stanford. Her name is Allie Crum. And she runs the Mind and Body Lab at Stanford. And she d studies mindset, right? That's kind of like her bread and butter. She's been studying it for years. And she had a postdoc that did this study that literally this was the reason why I I I ended up taking my watch off at the end. This was my Apple watch, not my ring. they did this study where they brought a bunch of people.

That had what they call an activity adequacy mindset, which means that these folks believe they get enough exercise and they believe that their exercise is helpful for their health. It's making them a healthier person. There are actually a lot of people that are in the world that have inadequate activity mindsets. These are folks that believe I don't get enough exercise and I know it's harming my health. Whether or not physiologically it is, it's kind of like where their brain is at. So they took all the people that had an

Adequate activity mindset. I believe I'm getting enough exercise and I believe it's helping my health. And they broke them up into three groups with an Apple Watch. And if you've ever had an Apple Watch, you can do this setting on the front where you can see your step count. And so they set it up where the first week they gave everybody an Apple Watch. And rather than showing the step count, it just said calculating, right? So it was just calibrating for the each person.

And they figured out what the average step count was for each of the participants that were in the study. And then, this is so mean, they broke them into three groups. They either told them the truth. So let's say you got 10,000 steps a day, it told you you got 10,000 steps a day. They put them in an inflated group by 40%. So let's say you get 10,000 steps a day, they told them that they got 14,000 steps per day. Or they put them in this is the the SAD group, they put them in the group.

Where they deflated by 40% and they told them that they only got 6,000 steps per day. This goes right to your question, Ashley. The folks that got the truth or the inflated number, they were great. They already had an adequate activity mindset. They're like, I get enough steps. I'm feeling great. This is good for me. The people that got the inflation were like, hi, what did I do? That got I got more steps. I don't know. The folks that got the deflated number, their mental health absolutely tanked. What's wrong with me? I'm down in the dumps.

speaker-2 (28:57.826)
They started to change their behaviors around other things. They started to eat more ultra processed foods. They ate less fruits and vegetables. They started to drink more alcohol. Like it kind of got to this point where they were like, screw it, like it's not working anymore, right? Even though, even though, to your point, Ashley, they were still getting 10,000 steps per day. They were actually doing the thing, but they believed they weren't. And so their mental health absolutely went.

speaker-1 (29:26.412)
Yeah. It's really depressing. Yeah.

speaker-2 (29:29.294)
So, this is why I caution about using these devices because they can, based upon the fluctuations of these numbers, have a very profound effect on our mental state, completely independent of whether or not they're indicating that there's something wrong. Right. We've talked about a couple of different scenarios where sometimes you want to be stressed. And if the device is telling you you're stressed.

Now it's gonna put you into a negative stress state rather than a positive and targeted or you know, positive stress state. In other cases, like you experience, Ashley, like I experience, I wake up and I'm like, I'm I had a great night's sleep. Man, I haven't slept that hard in so long. And then I look at my watch and I'm like, what? That's terrible. And then I have I have an awful day all day long.

speaker-1 (30:16.802)
Right.

speaker-2 (30:21.6)
In fact, in many of the professional leagues, they did this for the WNBA. They actually would not let them wear their devices. They do it a lot in NCAA competition as well. The coaches will say, take your watch off because I don't want you looking at your number that I know is gonna go down after you've flown across the country to show up for the national championship. And you're there thinking to yourself, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for this. It

immediately puts you into a mental state that is going to be devastating for your performance, having nothing to do with the number and everything to do with where your mind's at.

speaker-1 (31:01.696)
Okay, so I'm I wear the whoop. I've been using it as a guide. Like after that whole time in March when I was plummeting, I took it off and was like, forget it. Then I put it back on and was like, I'm gonna do it, but I'm not gonna be obsessed. I'm gonna use it as a guide. I'm gonna follow the patterns. I'm gonna try and see the rhythms, but I'm gonna not get obsessed with it. I would not say that I'm obsessed with it now. I do look at it and sort of have little like, that was good, or that makes sense, or but I don't freak out.

But is there a reason to wear it? I mean like it what's the good

speaker-2 (31:36.91)
I think if you take the mindset that you are now in tracks and you say, I'm learning from this as to what is beneficial for me or what is harmful for me, a really good example could be something like: when I go to bed before double digits, if I'm in bed by 9:59 PM and I drink a big glass of water before I go to bed and I brush my teeth and I've got this like really good routine.

My HRV improves. Well, that's pretty good and positive feedback that you need to get your butt into bed and get off your screen and put your head on the pillow and close your eyes, right? The converse is true, right? Like, when I go out on a Saturday night and I have two or extra glasses of wine, that affects me. And you might not actually feel it the next day. You might be like, I don't know, it's fine. I feel all right. A little brain fog, but everything's okay.

speaker-1 (32:33.804)
No confirmed. I always feel it, yes.

speaker-2 (32:37.186)
But that number can be like, hey, pay attention. Like pay attention. This is affecting you. Sure. And that I think is also really contextual, right? So it's a good way to not necessarily say my routine is as is and should be the same as Ashley's routine. Let's stay on sleep for an example.

Tracks, let's say you go to bed. If you go to bed by 9 59 p.m., you've got your big glass of water, you brush your teeth, put your head down your pillow, you haven't looked at your screens, and you're, you know, fallen asleep by ten ten. But Ashley is eleven thirty and the next day both of your HRVs are maximized, then you did it right. Right. Good job. And so it's relative. Yeah. I think this is also a

A cautionary tale, but I think exciting is that you can learn what works for you. One thing that I think about a lot in the world that I live in is everybody wants there to be a right or a correct protocol that should apply to all people. That's not reality. It doesn't exist. Every body is different, every physiology is different. So to your question tracks, I think one of the things that's really great about these devices is you can learn about your individuality.

what works for you, what doesn't work for you, which is probably going to be different than your partner in life, than your kids, than your training partners. And so it helps you to dial in your protocol so that you can understand how you can show up in on, you know, on race day, on any given Tuesday to the best of your ability and avoid the things that are going to be triggers for you.

speaker-0 (34:19.691)
I feel like this big takeaway here is yeah, trust your body. It's individual. Look at trends overall. So, like I'm I'm more or less kind of reframing what you're saying, but when we look at our own personal trends, even though they're measured differently by different devices, it's not the number that matters, it's the trend that matters. If you are really interested in HRV, what is your recommendation for?

Like what you should be tracking it and using that data for.

speaker-2 (34:51.499)
Yeah, I think the most important thing is to understand your physiology, what works best for you, what doesn't work for you, so that you can start to create your own individual plan, your own individual protocol. Where I think you need to be careful is in comparison to other people. That's really problematic because every person is different. Everybody's numbers are going to be different.

And the other thing that can be really helpful about using it is you can figure out if something is going sideways by following those trends. If you see a spike here or a dip there, it's okay. You can relax and just keep moving on with your day. But they can be pretty helpful to understand if something is really bothering you over time, but you can only do that if you understand your own baseline, right? So figuring out what works for you.

And what your normal is then allows you to interpret that data should it change.

speaker-1 (35:54.478)
No, I'm torn because I wear it and I like the data, but I also understand why it's it's a slippery slope.

speaker-2 (36:01.774)
You it's funny, Ashley, you were describing just a moment ago the idea of using the device to inform your day-to-day. How are you feeling? The whole thing. I work with a bunch of people that are like mindfulness folks, right? And they're like, Why do you need a device to tell you this? Like, can you just be a little bit introspective and learn the way that your body is actually feeling and take stock in the morning of

Waking up, feeling like you've rested, feeling very positive about your day. There's something to that that we could potentially

yeah analog.

speaker-0 (36:39.308)
And I used to very much be that way. Like I used to not sleep with a watch. I only wore it while I ran. And it's only been since I had my second child and I was so sleep deprived that I just became I saw it the data one morning and then all of the sudden it was like this new rule I had to live by. My husband and I would compare who got better sleep last night and this fear like, no, I'm gonna get dementia because I didn't have enough deep sleep last night. And it just has become

this obsession that I'm realizing as we talk, like, this is I've gotta let it go and get back to just like, it's fine. You have two small kids, like you're going to wake up and you can still sleep well and like that's okay. It's fine.

speaker-2 (37:23.554)
Yeah, I I think about that study that Ali Crumb did and that inadequacy mindset and how detrimental that can be long term. And it's being driven by those numbers, right? Like I would be curious, Trax, if you thought back in time, if you didn't see your HRV tank, would you have also at the same time perhaps thought like, I'm stressed, but I'm okay, or like I'm feeling really bad? Like, would it have been less

Traumatic for you if you didn't also have that number on top of it. Could you have been perhaps a little bit more resilient and say, I I know that I'm stressed, I'm traveling, I'm training for this marathon, but I'm gonna be okay. Where the converse happened where you're looking at this number and you're like, Am I okay? Like there's something to be said there.

speaker-1 (38:13.432)
So I'm sure I made it worse. Yeah. Yep. So do most people you work with not wear them?

speaker-2 (38:22.648)
It's a mix. It's a mix. I have a lot of nerdy friends that are just really into the numbers. But I will say, every single one of them, we have all had this conversation, even if they are diehard spreadsheet people. You know, they're uploading their data into Claude every morning to make sure that everything's going in the right direction. my god. They will also often say, I'm I'm also just a human being, and sometimes with y'all's like really overwhelming and stressing.

speaker-0 (38:46.964)
Yeah, if you're offloading all your information to AI, I mean I feel like we're crossing li we're starting to cross some lines. That's a whole topic for

speaker-1 (38:54.368)
Different, different one. Yes. Different.

speaker-0 (38:57.566)
Rachel, thank you so much for your time today. This has been very enlightening.

speaker-1 (39:02.382)
Amazing. I needed to hear an expert tell me that.

speaker-2 (39:07.916)
It's okay to take it off.

speaker-1 (39:09.59)
Or just not to freak out. You know, like in this world that's so data focused, everyone makes these blanket assumptions and it's just it's nice to hear that you you need to step back and not do that. I think that to that

speaker-2 (39:27.79)
Point too, we as the experts in this space also need to do a much better job of telling the general consumer or the athlete that's using the device, what are the guardrails here? Like how should you be interpreting this data? Yes. I think these companies really abdicate that space. They're not very good at showing you how to use that data, which leaves this vacuum of

influencers or people that are kind of like making up these protocols or whatever to say, if your HRV does this, then that means, you know, whatever is happening. And if we were a little at talking about nuance and context in this space, I think that people would be able to use these devices without having it be a a detriment to their mental health, to their training, to

speaker-4 (40:05.134)
Yeah.

speaker-4 (40:12.728)
Used.

speaker-2 (40:21.528)
Partner sleep competition. so I think, you know, I and I make this call all the time is that we as experts need to be better science communicators because if we don't, somebody fills the vacuum and usually they fill the vacuum with some fear based narrative. Right.

speaker-1 (40:38.766)
Right. I mean, really quick, do they not want d I'm just curious with the wearable people you work with, do they not want to put that in the notes or like 'cause it would be really helpful to have that before I start using it.

speaker-2 (40:50.358)
Yeah, I think there is a bit of a cart before the horse situation here with many of these devices where they started to use this technology because it was novel, it was marketable before they really brought a lot of subject matter experts onto their teams. And so we're backtracking, we're backfilling. Yeah. So and and I will say I you know, again, I work with all these teams, they have exceptional scientists.

speaker-4 (40:52.184)
There is a little bit

speaker-1 (41:11.969)
Now they're backtracking a little bit.

speaker-2 (41:20.204)
The scientists weren't part of most of the foundational teams as they were building out these devices and these different markets.

speaker-1 (41:27.179)
Folks. Yeah.

speaker-0 (41:28.962)
Thank you, Rachel, so much for your time. You've given us a lot to think about.

speaker-1 (41:33.23)
So awesome. Thank you.

speaker-0 (41:37.848)
Tracks my head is spinning.

speaker-1 (41:40.812)
Understandably so, right? I mean, everything that I thought I knew about HRV, what it means, how to read it, how it impacts me, is not what I thought. And it's definitely better than I thought. It's changed a lot for me. And this is why we call in the big cats.

speaker-0 (42:03.234)
Dude, me too. I I feel like I over the last year, I feel like I've really departed the place of listening to my body. Yeah. And really paying attention. And it happened, it almost happened without me noticing it. And that's the crazy part because we do, to your point, have so much data at our fingertips all the time that it has been so easy for me to slip into this habit of obsessing over my sleep.

And not even realizing like, that's negatively impacting me to the extent that like I feel some discomfort going to sleep without my watch, which is crazy because like it should be fine to sleep without your watch.

speaker-1 (42:46.678)
Right, here's where we are. I mean, I've I had it on, I got obsessed with it, I took it off, I reassessed and I put it back on thinking I had I was look using it in a new better way. Still never really not that good. Is it good to have or not? I don't I I'm leaning towards no.

speaker-0 (43:07.502)
I know, and like I have this mentality, you know, it's like kind of a joke. Like if you put it on Strava, if you don't put it on Strava, it doesn't count. And it's somewhat of a joke, but it's just like another place where you're able to log things and look at things and compare things and know if you've hit your weekly mileage. I that's a whole nother topic. Fleetfeet is a founding sponsor of Still Run It. And we love having Fleet Feet as a partner because so much of this show is about trying to better understand.

what our bodies are telling us. Sometimes that question is big and complicated, and sometimes it starts with something as simple as, are my shoes actually right for my feet? What we also really appreciate is that Fleet Feed is deeply rooted in community. They believe that running changes everything, just like we do. And that belief shows up in how they show up for runners. Fleetfeed's not just there for one type of runner or one moment in a journey. They're there for every stage of it.

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Head to our website and click Shop Fleet Feet to find your next pair of shoes or to find a store near you. You know, all of this is really making me rethink training altogether. And I kind of want to talk to someone if we can find anyone in this day and age who trains without a watch. What do you think?

speaker-1 (44:54.582)
It's funny that you say it. I actually do have one person I'm thinking of who does not use any wearable data. Like

speaker-0 (45:04.342)
You've been hold out this whole time, Trax. Who is it and can we call her right now?

speaker-1 (45:09.634)
I mean, hopefully she's there. I I really want to pick her brain. My friend Kara Goucher, Olympic athlete, mom, runner, busy woman, doesn't use anything but her own intrinsic data.

speaker-0 (45:24.418)
Dude, we all know who Kerry Goucher is. That's perfect. Can you let's call her right now?

speaker-1 (45:28.078)
Let's call her. So excited to have Kara Goucher with us today, former pro runner, Olympian, author, podcaster, TV commentator, mom, just wears a million hats. Welcome, Kara.

speaker-3 (45:41.122)
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

speaker-1 (45:44.342)
Awesome. Kara and I met back in I think like 2016 when she was a pro runner for Wazell and I was on their regular team and we basically connected there and kept in touch over the years and reached out when we were in town and basically formed a friendship that has brought us to this point.

speaker-3 (46:06.21)
That's right. Lots of running, lots of talking, lots of coffee.

speaker-1 (46:09.646)
Tons of coffee. You've been a runner your whole life. You started when you were young. You are still running today. I'm imagining when you were younger you didn't have a GPS watch or anything fancy, if I'm being honest with how old you are, which I think I know. And so you probably ran a lot more by feel and trusting your data and using splits as you got older and became a pro and sort of

evolved into technology and all the things that became available to us. Did you start to did you change and wear a different watch? Did you start tracking that data? Did you do things differently as they became available to you?

speaker-3 (46:54.04)
So I when I started running, I would just wear my swatch watch and my coach would say, like, go run 30 minutes and I'd be like, Okay, it's three twenty. We'll flip at, you know, three forty-five or three thirty-five or whatever. And then when I was a sophomore in high school, I qualified for this national championship and they had this pre race shakeout and everyone started their Time X's. And I was like, What, that's a thing? So I ended up getting a time X for Christmas that year. So like I'm just telling the story to share that I'm like really behind on the like data wearable.

situation

speaker-0 (47:26.004)
Wait, what was the watch that you had that was different from a Timex?

speaker-3 (47:29.528)
I would just wear like a regular swatch watch. Like like a regular watch.

speaker-1 (47:34.71)
What's our generation, Ashley?

speaker-0 (47:36.192)
So what's a swatch watch?

speaker-3 (47:37.858)
I mean it's the coolest watch ever and it's just a watch. It's not a a digital watch. It's like a legit watch, but with a plastic Yeah, yeah. So I would love to

speaker-0 (47:43.8)
With hands. And like it did it have a Velcro strap?

speaker-3 (47:49.354)
No, it had a plastic strap. Yeah. So I would just like with my coach would say, like, if we were doing a workout on the track, he would just yell the splits and I would just feel it in my body. And then like if he would say, I want you to run forty minutes, I'd literally look at what time it was and we'd go run and flip at twenty minutes. I I literally yeah. And so the time X was cool 'cause it was like, wow, like I can like start it and it'll tell us when to flip. but yeah, I just didn't care about that kind of stuff. And then

When I got to college, I ran for a coach, Mark Wetmore, who was really talked about intrinsic data all the time. Like you have to be able to feel it. You have to know. You can't even rely like there's times in your life when you won't even be able to r rely on splits. You have to feel the what your body's capable of. And then years later, I was running for Nike and they came out with their first version of I don't even remember what it was called, Nike Plus Watch or something.

And I Yeah, they're like really big, like they were black with like a neon. And I remember I was running a half marathon in New York City and Abdi Aramahan and I went out to the park to run together and I was just just had like a a timex still. And he's like, Why aren't you wearing your other watch? He's like he before he asked me what I had on tap and I was like, I I had a ten mile run or something. And he was like, Well, how are you gonna know how far you ran?

speaker-0 (48:49.976)
One of those.

speaker-3 (49:18.382)
And I was like, how have I known my whole life? Like it's based, you know, I it so I was like, I must I can kind of feel the pace that I'm running. And was it accurate? Of course not. But like that's just how we did it for so long. It was based on like, I feel like I'm going 730s or I feel like I'm going eight minute pace or whatever. So anyway, the only thing I eventually did get like a Garmin, I guess. At one point I got one, but even then, the only thing I've ever really cared about is heart rate.

And I did use heart rate a lot when I was trying to make my third Olympic team. just to make sure I wasn't overdoing it. But even then, I don't know. It did I just still was running more on how I felt. So I'm like I'm like the worst, you know, like I just wear an Apple watch now. I I had a chorus, it's really nice. My son took it, it's fine. And I just wear my watch and I totally go on how I feel.

speaker-0 (50:14.52)
So why did you get interested in heart rate at one point and why did you decide to track that?

speaker-3 (50:22.2)
So my coach was Mark Wetmore. I went back to him and he had gotten kind of into heart rate data and it was mostly on long runs. He wanted us to keep it at a certain level. And, you know, like for me, I did find out that like a good h a good long run for me was typically my heart rate would average around one fifty-five. And if it was a lot higher than that, then it showed me I was either like coming down with something or running too hard. But to be totally honest, it didn't change what I did in the minute. It was like afterwards, I'd be like, my heart rate was a little high. I

I must be coming down with something, but I didn't s slow down in the moment. So I don't know. I just think I grew up before all the gadgetry. And then I'm also a person who can get really obsessed with stuff. And so the thought of like tracking my sleep score or anything like that terrifies me because I would overanalyze it to death.

speaker-1 (51:13.932)
Which is basically what Ashley and I do. If I'm right. I mean

speaker-3 (51:19.43)
I I I think there's like a lot of room for it. I just know in my life it would be like we Josh Kerr just ran the world record in the mile and he was like talking about his data and looking at it every day. And I'm like, that would be the worst thing because I would wake up that day and if it wasn't perfect, I'd be like, Well, I guess it's not gonna happen today, instead of trusting all of the training and all of the preparation that's brought you to that moment. So I've never slept with anything on. I've never worn an aura ring and yeah, I don't know.

speaker-1 (51:49.006)
I think that's I think you sit you're jokingly saying you're the worst, but I think in hindsight you're probably better off than a lot of people out there who are now becoming so dependent on wearable data.

speaker-3 (52:03.758)
I think too, like I was a really good I was never a very good time trialer, but I was a very good tactical racer. And I think that's just sort of where my strength is, is that I could really feel like, no, I can move right now. Instead of getting caught up in like this feels fast or this feels slow, I really could rely on it was just like a skill set that I had. And so that has lent me to sort of resist any sort of data for the rest of my life. Cause I'm just like

I know my body really well. I know when I'm going over the envelope. And maybe it's because I started off literally wearing a swatch watch. I don't know. But it's like at this point, and even like late in my career, it was like, well, I don't need that information. I I know what it feels like. And I I think it helped me as a racer because I wasn't afraid to make moves later on that felt that maybe I would be like, no, I'm I can't do this. It's too scary or I'm going too fast or you know what I mean? I was like, no, no, no, I really trust how I'm feeling right now in this moment.

speaker-0 (53:02.232)
So do you feel like a little bit of a sense of pride?

speaker-3 (53:05.324)
I don't know that I feel a sense of pride as much as I feel I do feel like there's a lost art sometimes. And I even see this with my son of getting like caught up in splits all the time. And like sometimes you're having a better day than you thought or a worse day, and you're like beholden to this split instead of actually listening to your body and being like, like this is actually too hot, or this is actually a little like I actually feel better. I could push more. And I kind of lecture my son on this because he's grown up with like

you know, having a chorus or having like a GPS watch and stuff. And it's like you have to learn how to you have to learn how to listen to your body. And that if you want to be a good racer, you have to be able to listen to that. Because if the splits fall away, then you're like, the race is over, even though it might not be, you know? So it's not necessarily like a thing of pride as much as I'm like, I do think it's a skill that's getting lost with all the data we have. And I wish that sometimes people would would

take off the watch and do a workout here and there without it and and learn how to like learn their body's cues. Like I know my cues. I know the way my breath changes when I'm over the ledge. I know the way my fingers feel when I'm over the edge. But I also know the feeling of like, no, there's still a lot there and I'm not actually pushing myself as hard as I could be. And I think some of us like now I really think about like my son's generation, they're not like learning those skills.

speaker-0 (54:32.878)
So you hit on exactly the second part of the question I wanted to ask you. in a way I didn't expect you were going to. And like when you're talking about you feel it in your fingers, like that is such a nuanced feeling that would be really easy to miss. Like to your point, if you're paying attention only to your watch. And I like what you said about removing a watch for a workout, because I feel like our instinct is often to start with like just an easy run, just take it off, just do an easy run, don't pay attention.

But to really learn those cues and those feelings, a workout makes so much sense. So this is inspiring me from that perspective, because it's been a long time. Okay, but my question, I'll get there eventually, which is you talked about like pushing, like you know when you can push the envelope. for those of us who have become too beholden to our technology and watches, like can you describe some of the feelings that you've had when you like

Know you can push more?

speaker-1 (55:31.693)
Or can't.

speaker-0 (55:32.494)
Or can't, yeah.

speaker-3 (55:33.792)
Or can't. Yeah. I think like there's time like for me when I know I can't, when I'm like, nope, this is too hot, it's really a feeling in my chest of a little bit of restriction. And it it starts to become like a little bit of tightness. I start to feel a little tightness. And then if I've really gone over the edge, I feel a tingle in my fingers and then I'm like, gosh, I'm like, I'm in trouble now.

but it's mostly this sensation I would say, like in my chest of like, this is like I can feel a little flutter. This is a little too much, like this is a little too hot. I need to back off because otherwise this is gonna cost me. And then on the flip side, I can think of so many races where I was on the ropes mentally, but then I like checked in with my body and I'm like, I'm actually not dead yet. Like I don't have any tingling in my fingers. I think about when I won the medal at the world championships.

With a lap to go, I was like, this is amazing. I'm gonna get fourth in the world. This is crazy. And then I was like, actually, I think there still might be a little bit left there. And then same at the Olympic trials a year later in the 5000, where I was like, I'm in third. I'm gonna make it to the Olympics. Everything's fine. And then I was like, actually, I'm not all out. Like, I'm not my breathing is nothing is restricted in me right now. I am not all out yet. So yeah, I just think like those moments wouldn't have happened if I

didn't have that feeling and didn't know my body so well 'cause I would have just settled for where I was in the race. Right.

speaker-1 (56:58.4)
So as a high school coach, I I hear, you know, basically I think of saying to them, give me your watches and let's do this workout without, you know, where I just what let's run by feel. And I can hear them totally flipping out by that concept. but I feel like we've put limits on, they've put limits on themselves in

Hitting split every single time or w knowing exactly what's going on and basically not tuning in with how they're feeling on the day and trusting that even if their watch like you know, if it says they're running a certain time but they feel good, if they don't if they look at the number, they're holding themselves back. Whereas if they they weren't and they felt good, they could maybe race better because they ha

could hit another level that they didn't know they had. So I guess I I wonder how to work, you know, well I mean you have your son runs, like do you how do you well, how would you suggest working with kids or athletes in a way that gets them more intrinsically in tune with how they feel?

speaker-3 (58:16.546)
I think there's a couple workouts that are really good for this exact situation, which is different fartlicks. So like minute on, three minutes off, or two minutes on, three minutes off, where they push based on how they feel. And it's scary because they're like, Well, I don't know what split it is and what does this mean? But it actually helps them get to know, like, I I can keep going, or, I was out way too hard. The last four sets were so hard, you know?

And then I also think hill repeats are another way to do this. And like that's where I tell my son, like hill repeats are the best workout because and fartlic, I think. They're just both so good because you really are just listening to yourself. I mean, you're doing a hill, you're like, you might not know exactly how far it is, the pace you know what I mean? It's like you're learning how much can I push right now and get to the top and still come back down and do 10 more or eight more or whatever many you're doing. So I think like those kinds of workouts.

Once you step on the track, it's really, really hard for people to not pay attention to splits. It's almost impossible. You know, like even for myself with my Timex, I'm still getting my split. And I'm I'm like, well, I know I'm on pace or not right now. but I think those kinds of workouts, fartlicks and hill repeats are really important and they can really help people learn how to get that data and they learn how what their limits are on either side.

speaker-1 (59:38.488)
Do you race with a watch?

speaker-3 (59:40.46)
I did not race with a watch. No. I do like now I do because I just want to know like my end time, which is dumb because they give it to me anyway. but no, I did not race with a watch, which I'm not saying that's good better, because I do think I used to race just totally on feel. And I look back at some of the marathons and I'm like, maybe I should have had a watch on. Like I ran I did wear a watch at the

2012 Olympic trials because I knew that I could not afford, even though I was running based, I knew based on my preparation and I was coming back from an injury that I could only handle two or three miles under 520 pace. And so for me, it was just like, you know, I remember we split two and I was like, okay, if the next one is fast again, I have to back off. And then we actually slowed down. So I think there is a purpose to wearing a watch here and there, but that was another just a timex.

It was not a GPS watch. I I never raced with a GPS watch.

speaker-0 (01:00:41.836)
Okay, but you mentioned earlier you're now wearing an Apple Watch. Do you find that you are faced with more data on a regular basis just from that watch than you actually want? Or how like what was your decision process for deciding to wear an Apple Watch? Or was like, I can talk on the phone on my watch?

speaker-3 (01:01:01.656)
So for I for a long time I was like, I could get a hold of someone if I needed to, but to be totally honest, I actually disconnected my phone from it a couple of years ago because I didn't want anyone to be able 'cause I would be running and all these texts were coming through and I'm like, This sucks. You know, this is my time. So now it's just it's just a watch. I mean it has GPS in it.

For me, I've kept a training log since nineteen ninety-four and I have them all right here in my office. And I don't even know why I'm writing it down because I never go back and look at it and I'm not sharing it with anyone. But I still like to be have a basic idea of how many miles I'm running. And so I have there, you know, like I go to my fitness app and then I click on my run and then I write that down. And you know, it's interesting because half the time I just run write down how far I ran.

Every once in while, if it's like a long run, I'll write the pace in my heart rate. just so I can see like, am I making progress? Am I slowing down? Also, I I will say I have gotten a lot more chill as I've gotten older. I mean, this isn't to say that I wasn't h cared about hitting splits when I was pro athlete. Of course I cared about hitting splits. I totally cared, you know, like if my coach assigned 10 by a mile, I'm gonna I wanna nail that those miles. So it's not saying that you don't.

do that. But it's just, yeah, I don't, I never sleep with my watch on or anything like that because I don't need all the data or like the elevation gain or this or that. Like for me, that it's not really helpful. It's I still keep a training log. I write down how far I ran and then I write down how I felt.

speaker-1 (01:02:38.062)
It's so old school.

speaker-3 (01:02:40.118)
I know it. I know. And I write it down. I mean it's refreshing. I have thirty years, thirty two years of journals here, you know.

speaker-0 (01:02:48.686)
That's amazing. And also, I mean, thinking about the 10 by a mile. I mean, you have you probably had a course marked out. So you know you're split because you're running that course. And I think back to doing mile repeats like in high school or college before having a GPS watch. And you do feel really good when you hit the split just because you're doing it. And I think now, like when I'm running a workout, like I looked, I'm always looking down at my watch.

And that is such a habit.

speaker-3 (01:03:20.906)
It is such a habit. And it's not necessarily bad because it can guide you, right? But when you're looking down all the time, like for instance, I did some 800s today because I'm running a half marathon this weekend. And just what you said for the first two, I kept looking at my watch. And then I was like, I feel so tired. This doesn't feel good. And then the next So for the first two I looked at my watch. The next four I didn't look at my watch at all. And guess what? They were all faster. And so it's like, it's just a little reminder of like, yes, it's a tool.

But you can't let it overwhelm your run. You know, like I wanted to do those on field today. I was trying to imagine myself in the middle of a long run. I was trying to imagine like good posture. How am I gonna feel? And the first two felt so hard because I was looking at my watch and then I stopped looking and I was like, I actually feel pretty good.

speaker-1 (01:04:10.666)
Mind blowing. It really is. It's really makes you feel like all of us need to take a step back and like question like technology is moving forward, forward, forward, forward, forward, and everything's getting better and stronger and more data and everything. And I feel like it's too to a point it's gonna work against us.

speaker-3 (01:04:36.078)
I think there's like a purpose for it, right? Like it's it's you can help track a lot of things, like your sleep scores and all this stuff. It I I've never kept track of that, but I'm assuming it can like help you see when you've overdone it and if you're recovering properly. So I think there's a place for it. I just see this and and this is my hang up. So it's just mine, but I see the skill of racing falling apart.

And I see it on the high school level all the time. They're like running hard, running hard. As soon as they're stop falling start falling off the pace, they just quit. And it's like, that's not racing. You know? You don't you're not feeling yourself. You're not learning and and I and that's why I like I love championship racing. I love like the Olympic finals and the world championships because there's no pacemaker and there's no pace lights and they're just racing each other. And so I feel like the art of racing, we're losing it. And it's

That's like my little hang up. And a lot of people are like, Well, who cares? We're running fast. Who cares if we can't feel the race? But I'm like, no, that's the best.

speaker-0 (01:05:38.166)
I mean, that feels just like such a departure from just being human and a human experience, right? Like if we are depending too much on data and the little thing of feeling, I can't stop thinking about you talking about the feeling in your fingertips. Like that's so cool. And that's such like a personal, obvious marker for you. So I think this is really cool and such a great perspective to have.

On this show. And I just want to ask one other question about this, which is kind of like departing from your time as a professional athlete. And now, like as a woman, as you're getting older. for all of us who like racing is changing a bit as we age, like how how and why do you think it is important from your perspective to continue to just trust yourself and feel in your body versus

like moving over to rely on data because it's just like sort of ubiquitous.

speaker-3 (01:06:36.78)
Yeah, I think like our bodies do change. I I kinda hate it when people are like, Age is just a number. And I'm like, it is just a number, but also like you do get older and things change. I mean, I will never run as fast as I did ten years ago. It it just is what it is, you know? And but that doesn't mean there's not purpose in it. And that doesn't mean there's not like joy in it and meaning in it. That's why I do sometimes like to jot down my heart rate because I'm like it reminds me of like, no, I'm working hard.

I know this time is way slower than it used to be, but I was averaging 155 beats and that's actually hard. That was like a good hard effort. and so I like do like to pay attention to it on like my longer days and stuff because it reminds me though, even though it looks so different than it did fifteen years ago, it's that's where my body's at now. And that was hard for my body, and I did work hard today. But I just think like

I used to think, well, when I can't make a team or anything anymore, like, what's the point? I'll be leaving my family. Like I it's selfish to to to do that. And then I got older and I'm like, what? No. I love still going out there. I love challenging myself. I love pushing myself. And I think it's just an important skill in to have like in general in life. And so I'll probably be like out there forever. Just, you know, I was out there today.

Doing my little 800s. There was a family there, and they were like, Are you care gouter? I was like, they were visiting from New Jersey. And I'm like, This is crazy. Like, what am I training for? I'm training for me, you know? I don't know. I think it's super important to keep doing it. And yeah, your goals change. And like I was so motivated two years ago to beat my son's PR in the 5K. And I mean, it got me up in the morning. It got me out. It got me. I went to a track. I trained so hard.

And I did it and it felt amazing. And it was, you know, four minutes slower than my PR. But you beat it. But in that moment, I beat my son's PR. Which now it's over. I can't do that anymore. But it was so joyful and it like meant so much to me. So I think it's just like it's important to keep going out there and just reframing your mind and you know, also just like being gentle with yourself because your body does change. I don't care.

speaker-3 (01:08:56.226)
How healthy you are, like how strict your diet is. Like your body changes and that's okay. That's actually what's supposed to happen.

speaker-1 (01:09:02.997)
Right. I know. And I think I I mean, I think people sometimes are like, Well, my body's changing. So I should read my whoop and see, okay, well, if I d didn't get my sleep and my HR V dips, then, you know, I'm fifties, so it's okay that like and i it's also just like, No, your body's just changing and that's okay. Feel it out.

speaker-3 (01:09:23.406)
I mean, I literally don't know what HRV means.

I literally don't know what that means.

speaker-1 (01:09:32.046)
Not even remotely surprised.

speaker-1 (01:09:42.039)
Well, you obviously don't need to know.

speaker-3 (01:09:44.174)
Okay.

speaker-1 (01:09:47.63)
But I hope people are listening because I don't I think a lot of I think we all need to take a step back and reassess what information you need and what information you don't need and how to use it. Kara, this was amazing. You hit the nail on the head for us. And we are so grateful for your time and for your honesty. And we just really appreciate you being here with us.

speaker-3 (01:10:09.802)
It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

speaker-0 (01:10:12.898)
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Okay, Trax, I feel like I just want to talk to one more expert on wearables, just to get a little bit of a fuller picture, because maybe there is some validity to tracking this data. What do you think?

speaker-1 (01:11:14.912)
I totally agree. Did you have someone in mind? I

speaker-0 (01:11:17.592)
Do actually, there's this woman named Kirsten Seegers. She works for the Wisp Institute, which is a really cool research institute for female athletes outside or around the Boston area. And she studies wearables as it relates to injury prevention, all sorts of other things. So I kind of think we should call her.

speaker-1 (01:11:36.856)
Let's call her.

speaker-0 (01:11:38.754)
Before we dive in, Kirsten, you're a biomechanist, so I'm gonna say like a movement scientist, maybe. Can you share what all of that means and what you do?

speaker-4 (01:11:50.382)
Absolutely. And first and foremost, I get to work with amazing people, people that are super active or struggling with injuries or other physiological limitations. And I get to analyze their movement and help them achieve their goals, help them improve, whether it's on a performance metric, prevent injury or

Or simply get back to walking without pain. So that's the big theme of what I do. I analyze how people move inside of a lab as well as start using some really great tools that technology has given us to explore some of these things outside of the lab in people's natural environments. And so it's exciting to see where biomechanics is going and where we can optimize people's movement.

speaker-0 (01:12:35.086)
Okay, so I wanna jump into wearable tech here because you've done a lot of work in this arena. And we're living in this really weird age where we have so much data at our disposal all the time. and it can be very helpful for our health, and it can also be perhaps detrimental. So I know we're gonna dig into all of that. But I have an example of a friend recently, a few months ago, her dad was wearing

An Apple watch and just like decided to take an EKG on the watch and notice some irregularities, which spurred him to make a doctor's appointment. And they discovered he had a benign tumor that he had to have removed. And so had he not randomly decided to do that, I mean, the outcome could have been pretty terrible. So that's like a really that's an example where a wearable was incredibly helpful. But also

We have data all the time or we can look at our sleep. Like we've already talked about that. We've talked about our heart rate variability and what's okay and what's not okay. And there's just so much out there. It's hard to know what to use and what not to use. So what is your perspective on that and just your area of work or in your area of research?

speaker-4 (01:13:49.976)
Certainly. Like you mentioned, wearable have so many benefits. They've helped so many people with finding out problems that they have. But I also think for a day-to-day basis, they have a lot of benefits. They can help validate your personal training progress as you're training for a goal or a race.

They can help you monitor overtraining through long-term workload management and tracking. They can help you pace on an interval or a long run. so I think about these things specifically in performance, not necessarily in health. There are so many other big picture benefits to wearables, but also they

Come with so much data to your point. Some of these metrics are really important to give you a sense of how things are changing over a time scale versus really honing in on that single bad recovery score, that single bad night of sleep. I think one rule of thumb that I kind of think about, and this is just personal, I don't really change any behavior until I've seen something that it persists for three days. Okay.

speaker-1 (01:14:54.094)
That's huge. That's a huge way.

speaker-4 (01:14:56.29)
And that's just something that I I I don't have any specific scientific data on that, but that's something that I look at. And that kind of helps guide me for okay, I had a long haul flight and I'm having some really funky things showing up in my data as I'm recovering from that. It's gonna take a couple days to kind of settle in. You have to take your own life situation into account and

Ultimately, your watch may tell you you're 100% recovered or you're fifteen percent recovered. But if you go out for a run and your legs feel amazing or they feel like lead, you know, listen to your body. Your nervous system knows more than the watch algorithm. That's the key takeaway. Like don't lose the disconnect to the way that you're feeling. Trust yourself.

speaker-0 (01:15:43.822)
I'm still grappling with this idea of how we balance those two things together because it is so easy to get further and further and further away from listening to your body at a day and age where we have so many different options for wearables. and then also like if the data that we have is actually accurate. for example, like I used to wear my watch really, really loose. And so my heart rate was always really low.

because it wasn't measuring it well. and I know there's like chest heart rate things, there's the chorus goes around your arm. how does device placement or different types of devices, even individual physiology kind of affect the accuracy of some of these measurements that we're seeing?

speaker-4 (01:16:32.59)
They all have benefits and drawbacks. I think a lot of women have complained about chest straps for chafing reasons. So the arm strap is becoming a little bit more appealing. The ring is a great low profile thing, but it doesn't give you all of the information of a wrist worn sensor that you can just check while you're running. So I think there are a lot of just environment benefits to each of them.

But a lot of them have similar accuracy trade-offs as well. So if something's too loose and it bounces around, any of the sensors that are using these light sensors to help understand your blood volume and estimate heart rate, that is s subject to sometimes missing what your what your pulse rate is going to be and actually lock in on a step frequency. This is something that's called cadence lock.

So if you're wearing something too loose, you may not get great metrics for heart rate. And that's on all of them. Women are historically under represented in studies and some of these validation efforts. So I think that they are getting better, but a lot of the initial research has been done on

young adult males. So I would I would say that if you're going through a transition phase of your life, let's say you are postpartum and your blood volume is different and that could have an effect. But we also know that like hormonal shifts as you go through menopause, that could potentially have an outcome. So I think generally speaking, wearables that use algorithms that are aware of the cyclical nature of female hormones and their effect on

Heart rate, resting heart rate, HRV, core body temperature, we're starting to get much more accurate information. Some of those transition phases where we haven't had the opportunity to like really focus in on that subpopulation of women at this point. Just caution. I wouldn't make decisions off of it. It doesn't necessarily mean it's bad data, but let the data settle. You know, there are so many different aspects that kind of build to the internal system that.

speaker-4 (01:18:37.428)
Is missed from a watch. But I think the really good thing that you can use a watch for to help try and prevent injury is tracking your training load, right? So training load, this is helpful over time. Like are it's calculated using cumulative volumes, intensity trends as you're ramping up. Something that you don't want to do is increase your intensity and volume out of nowhere. And that's certainly something that we understand increases your internal tissue strain.

But this is something that you can kind of look at as a gradual thing, making sure that you're doing something natural in your in your ramp and your build, right? So I think those are some ways to kind of, you know, demystify. It's not an injury prevention tool, but it can still be helpful in monitoring and preventing injuries. Don't forget that you know your body best. A watch can help you understand your body, but it's not your body.

You were doing your activity before wearables existed. Let wearables augment and improve your performance. Don't let them detract from your ability.

speaker-1 (01:19:39.864)
Don't limit yourself by data.

speaker-0 (01:19:41.824)
The takeaway tracks right there. Don't limit yourself by data and listen to your body. Okay, this has been great. This has been eye-opening. Everyone, thanks for listening to our first episode. We will have links to everything that we talked about. More information about each of the three experts we had on the show, all in our show notes. And if you haven't visited our website yet, please do so. It's still running pod.com. You could also sign up for our newsletter there.

speaker-1 (01:19:47.19)
And listen to your body.

speaker-0 (01:20:10.114)
where you can get more information about the messy stuff in your inbox. And we can't wait for you to join us for our next episode, which comes out in two weeks. So if you haven't subscribed yet, hit subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you know as soon as the next episode drops.

speaker-1 (01:20:27.598)
Great. Go get some sleep, girl. Yeah.