Books

Getting Started – Next Steps. ‘Running with Power – Getting Started’ helps runners to begin using power to measure how hard they’re working and power metrics to guide their training and racing. It was written with the help of a testing team, who made it into the book they’d want to recommend to their running friends who were curious about power. But there are still thousands of runners who don’t know about power, or don’t know how to get started. And the difficult thing is, there’s no easy way to reach them … how can we ‘spread the word’?

Getting Started – What makes this book different? The key differences: 1) It covers the Stryd footpod and wrist-based power – wrist-based power is a recent development, and one that may be more budget-friendly for many runners. 2) A heavy focus on choosing equipment & apps – so that you can make the right choices from the start, avoiding expensive or frustrating mistakes; 3) Coverage of five fundamental power concepts – so that you have a solid foundation on which to continue building your knowledge and use of power, without getting stuck in too much detail or nuance; 4) Activities (learning by doing) to help translate the learning into practice; 5) With it’s mix of concepts, equipment & apps and learning by doing, there’s no other book that makes it easier to Get Started, Running with Power.

Getting Started – Team contributions. The book wouldn’t be the book it is without contributions and feedback from the testing team – some major, some less so. Here are some major changes: 1) Re-wrote Chapter 10 ‘Power-Duration’ from the point of view of fatigue, which makes much more sense than the previous explanation. 2) Added Chapter 6 ‘Example combinations’ to show equipment and app combinations proven to work well together. 3) Moved Part 3 ‘Setups and Configs’ and some of Part 1 online, as power equipment & apps are still developing rapidly.

Getting Started – The testing team. I realised I was going to need help, for a few different reasons: 1) I’ve been using power since 2018, but the audience would be new to power; 2) I run road races; trail runners and track athletes can also use power; 3) I use a Garmin with a Stryd footpod – what about wrist-based power or other watches? 4) I wanted a well-rounded testing team: a mix of runners and coaches, watches and power meters, and a broad range of experience.

Getting Started – Why another book? I started to explore wrist-based power and realised that runners who wanted to try Running with Power using the power meter built into their running watch had little or no guidance about how to do that. Getting started (the book has the following goals: 1) No assumption of a particular power meter – runners could choose the Stryd footpod, the power meter built into their watch, or any other; 2) Lots of advice on making the right equipment and app choices – the right choices result in usable running power metrics with minimum manual effort; 3) Enough ‘power concepts’ content to provide a solid foundation – with an emphasis on making those concepts easy to understand and apply; 4) A learning by doing approach to support the concepts and to start using power – an emphasis on actually ‘getting started’; 5) Minimal overlap with the existing books – I didn’t want to produce ‘more of the same’.