Training Status: Unproductive!

I absolutely love my Garmin Fenix 6S! It collects so much data and turns that into information about how training is going. I have been trying to take this information and make sense of it so that I can improve my running. Recently, I have started to pay attention to the training status that Garmin displays at the end of my run. Usually, it lets me know that the status is either “maintaining” (yellow) or “productive” (green).

Garmin training status graph — My Training Status from Garmin

Both of these ratings seem acceptable to me being that I am just building a base at this point, but then I got this display of info at the end of my run on Wednesday (orange above).

Unproductive training status on Garmin watch

I was a little bit annoyed by this! I am trying to build a running base so that I can start marathon training so every run, in my opinion, counts! As in…, they are all productive! Garmin and I apparently have different definitions for productivity.

Garmin’s explanation is that my runs are all “high aerobic” meaning that they are all high intensity and that I need to add “low aerobic” activity like easy runs. I feel like my runs are super easy! I could continue to run after I am done most days, but I am trying to stick to a specific program and not overdo it. Still yet, after receiving that unproductive status, I ran slower on the next day’s run. A whole minute slower, and I still received an unproductive training status.

Instead of trying to understand the reasoning behind this, I decided that I would run how I felt on Saturday (my Mom would call me “stubborn” ha!) and it was not a slow easy run. In fact, it was probably one of the fastest (higher intensity) runs that I have done in this training cycle. Garmin bumped up my training status to maintaining from unproductive. Hmmm…was the fact that I was off on Friday have something to do with that. Maybe I was recovered? It’s all so confusing.

According to Garmin, the training status feature lets you know how your training affects your fitness level and performance which can change based on your overall training load and V02 max. Below are the training states that can be assigned.

Garmin training status states — Garmin Training Status States

Training load lets you know whether you are have gained or lost fitness over the past week. As the graph above shows, my training load was falling out of the green zone as the week progressed which lets me know that my fitness is decreasing. Once I took a day off, I had a more effective training load.

Being that my VO2 max has stayed relatively stable (see graph above) I feel like my main problem is recovery. It’s hard to improve fitness if you are not recovering well. There are many symptoms that you may experience in this state such as fatigue, irritability, heavy legs, &, etc… But even when you are not picking up on these signs, looking at the relationship between heart rate and pace can give some feedback about training status and recovery.

On the first unproductive day, my heart rate zones were way less than ideal. I should be running mostly in zone 2 or 3. Keep in mind that I run a lot of hills (just part of my route) but even though my heart rate may increase going up these hills, it is never in Zone 5. My pace on that day was about 30 seconds per mile slower so you would expect that I would be running more in the lower zones. Looking back on that day, I realized I was feeling a bit fatigued and not as excited about running as I usually am. Most days I can’t wait to get out for my run! And the second graph was from the following day when I ran at a much slower pace but the heart rate was still a bit high relative to how slow I was running.

Garmin also displays how long I need to recover after the run. On the first unproductive day, it stated that 36 hours were needed. I had a short 2-mile run scheduled the next day so I just ignored that little bit of advice and ran about 24 hours later. That obviously did not help my case.

Now that I have looked into this a little more and have a little better understanding, I can use this information to make better decisions on the run for the day. I don’t think that all of my runs need to be run at a super slow pace but I do need to include some easier runs. Maybe I should actually drive to an area without so many hills so that not all of my runs are of such high intensity, and so that I am not beating myself up so much. I could do that for about a week just for comparison? Maybe..?

Running and Strengthening

Monday Walk 2 miles + Postural Exercises
Tuesday Run 2 miles + Light Strengthening Exercises
Wednesday Run 3 miles + Postural Exercises
Thursday Run 2 miles
Friday Strengthening Exercises
Saturday Run 4.5 miles
Sunday Easy Hike 2.2 miles

Given the data that I have looked at this week, maybe I should be taking a full rest day during the week.

Week 6 of Hal Higdon’s Novice Supreme Marathon Training is completed. Next week is a down week with no increase in miles and then the following week I finally get to move up to 5 miles for the “long-run”.

I decided to take a little hike up Flat Top Mountain Trail on Sunday instead of the 30-minute walk that was scheduled. It was a super easy hike (zone 1 and 2) and I did not go all the way to the top. The mountain is still pretty much completely snow-covered and the area had some awesome views.