Stryd Power Meter - Scam or Actually Useful?

I've used the Stryd footpod since it came out, and I "upgraded" to the wind sensor version as well. (There was an earlier version that clipped to your shorts, which I never tried.) Few thoughts:

- For most runners, Stryd is nice because it gives you very accurate instant pace, which GPS doesn't do. If that's all you want, though, you can get a cheaper footpod like the Garmin, and it's nearly as good.

- The "power" numbers you get are basically a scaled version of your real time calorie consumption. They scale it so that it looks comparable to cycling numbers, but you're actually operating at about 4x the power that the watch shows you; it's just that most of that energy is wasted as heat. These numbers are pretty reliable. They test tons of people on treadmills, measuring O2 consumption, to generate the algorithm .

- Stryd's power numbers take a little time to stabilize because it has a barometer that needs to detect that you're going up an incline. If you pop up a little 5-stride roller, it won't always register that. It's best to put it on a 3 or 10-second average.

- Here's the big benefit: I've found that running power does not closely correlate with perceived exertion on hills. Basically, I always thought that I was a (smart) conservative hill runner, but Stryd told me that if I want to truly do even effort, I needed to slow down even more. I have noticed that on hilly race courses, this unquestionably leads to faster times. I would routinely be in a pack of runners where I'd get in a pattern of letting them go and reeling them in on the ups and down, and I would always drop them later in the race. I also find that it's more helpful the longer the race. My perceived exertion is more reliable at 5k pace than at half marathon pace, and I can't trust it at all in a marathon, where I'm usually feeling great in the first half. That said, if you run with it a lot and keep an eye on the power, you eventually can learn what your numbers will be without looking at it.

- The wind sensor is iffy, and I sort of wish I didn't have it. If you have a steady, constant breeze, or if the air is still and you are drafting, then the wind sensor works pretty well. (It doesn't show up as a separate field on the watch; it just gets added to your wattage.) But if it's gusty, then the numbers go totally haywire.

- Power is also really useful for sprint work. If you want to do some flying 30s or hill sprints, you can look at the data afterwards and easily see what your peak power was for each rep. This is way more accurate than trying to time your sprints, and probably more useful, since most distance runners are doing these by feel and aren't trying to hit a specific time for 30 meters.

- The stats like Running Training Stress Score (rTSS) and such are all totally nonsense. I don't know enough about cycling and triathlon to have an opinion about the validity of those kinds of metrics for those sports, but rTSS doesn't remotely correlate with how runners actually experience the stress of running.

- Running power will never be as important for runners as cycling power is for cyclists. Not because running power can't be accurate, but simply because pace works so well for runners. Cyclists need power because the impact of wind and slight inclines is so major that speed is meaningless. Moreover, if runners really want to precisely measure their effort, there are tracks everywhere.

Stryd is a HUGE waste of money. It's better to listen to your body than to some weak, buggy technology.

aztec the moronic wrote:

Stryd is a HUGE waste of money. It's better to listen to your body than to some weak, buggy technology.

Stryd or heart rate are good because a vast majority of people suck at listening to their body. They run way too fast. Heart rate, Stryd, or better yet, blood lactate measurements teach people how fast (or slow) they are supposed to be running. You only need to do this a handful of times before you really learn the feeling. Most people need to learn that feeling first.

egrhrth wrote:

Stryd or heart rate are good because a vast majority of people suck at listening to their body. They run way too fast. Heart rate, Stryd, or better yet, blood lactate measurements teach people how fast (or slow) they are supposed to be running. You only need to do this a handful of times before you really learn the feeling. Most people need to learn that feeling first.

I agree with this. Firsthand experience as well as observing others. First run with an HRM was like "THIS is my easy pace?" and it completely changed my paradigm of perceived exertion. Most of the benefit was in the feedback from the first week/month wearing it. Then I internalized the lessons. I guess it wasn't that I wasn't listening to my body, it was that I thought easy pace was supposed to feel much harder than it actually is. And I know plenty of people who can hit metronomic 8 minute miles but never run more than ~3, because they think every run is supposed to feel so effin hard.