My Garmin 35 bit the dust the other day, and my backup Garmin 230’s battery is pretty much to the point where it needs to be charged daily. This means at some point in the next few months, updating to a new watch will be necessary.

Since both of my watches were pretty old and having issues. I had known I would be looking for a new running watch soon and had started researching different options about a month ago – long before the Garmin 35 stopped working completely.

I had narrowed the choices down to the Apple Watch SE. I have no plan to run out and get one tomorrow, but I will probably end up with one sometime between now and August 6th.

Unless someone can give me specific reasons to go in a different direction.

Last week with my latest injury putting me on the shelf again and I couldn’t run, so wandered around the Internet looking at various places to get the Apple Watch SE. TheWife would have given me more than stink-eye if I had gone ahead and purchased one now, so I was good. I was doing due diligence on finding the best prices for the watch – for later.

Wait…there is more.

Being an injured runner will take you down strange rabbit holes – or so it seems. The Internet can be an interesting place to find all kinds of interesting stuff about things you have questions about.

I have been intrigued for a couple of years about the Stryd foot pod and how it does things.

For some reason, I started looking at the Stryd running pod after seeing a link to a video on a site I visited. Also a couple of years ago, Sam W. showed me the Stryd pod and the data it produced from a run we had done together and I have been intrigued by it off and on since then.

Over the next two days, I watched various videos, read reviews, checked out their site, added their apps to my watch/phone, and tried to figure out what in the hell running with power really was all about.

Stryd seemed in many ways to be precisely what I am looking for. A tool that I could use to tone down my horrible instincts when it comes to training properly. And who knows, maybe even run a little more consistently with fewer stoopid injuries.

Okay, let’s be honest the price in the past has always stopped me. Spending that much money for something that is a first-world problem solution and a luxury item that I couldn’t justify.

However, I had one of those aha moments last week while researching and looking at the Stryd site to learn more about their product.

It is a LOT of money for a running pod, but only a small percentage of my purchase price has anything to do with the actual running pod. The bulk of the purchase price is devoted to all the stuff behind the curtain, the Stryd ecosystem. The data algorithms to quantify my data, personal support, putting all that information/data that I produce into something that I can use. Not simply rows on a spreadsheet or pretty graphs that are nice to look at but don’t serve any real purpose.

After I realized this, I ordered one.

Yeah, I ordered the Stryd pod last week, even though it costs almost as much as an Apple Watch SE, which would make a lot more sense for me to get at this time. However, with everything that I was reading or watching I came to the conclusion that I needed to try the Stryd pod and ecosystem more than I needed the Apple Watch SE.

A big choice, but…

Strangely enough, I felt at the time and still think that other than going and finding a coach, that Stryd is the best choice available to me to become a better runner. Yes, even at 63, I still aspire to become a better runner. That, unfortunately, does not always mean becoming a faster runner, but more to becoming more knowledgeable about my running, and hopefully, one that reduces the number of injuries that have followed me so faithfully this year and past years. Getting faster than I am now is something I can do, but I need to be running consistently to do so.

Using power in running is a different way of looking at my running and will force me to do things differently. At least, that is what I hope will happen.

If nothing else, I will have some great data sets to look at and drool about as I figure out what they mean. 😃

The reality is that

Stryd is expensive, but if it helps me run smarter and avoid the stoopid Harold being Harold injuries that have plagued me this year and in the past.

It will have been well worth it!

I know what I am doing with my running and training is not working. I know that I need more structure in my running, and the Stryd ecosystem may be able to provide me with both the structure and feedback I need to be more successful than I have been.

Using the Stryd will be a learning experience. There is a complete ecosystem within Stryd, with new terminology, how to look at data sets, what is Power and how to use it properly to improve, training plans, questions that get answered relatively quickly by customer service, a community that appears to be helpful. Yeah, the pod only being the tip of the iceberg and the data collection instrument for everything else.

I think that is what made up my mind to buy into the Stryd ecosystem. It is all about how Stryd interprets my running data into something I might be able to run with.

It came in yesterday afternoon, after taking the long away around to get here. The USPS decided that my running pod needed a quick vacation from Colorado to Puerto Rico and then get up here to me in Maine. I was introduced to Stryd’s customer service, and Matt was exemplary in providing potential solutions to the situation if the pod got unexpectedly stuck in Puerto Rico.

Now that my well-traveled Stryd running pod is on my shoe, it is time to see how this all shakes out and if it is worth the investment I have made.

Yeah, time will tell how well this goes.