I trained for a marathon with my running watch and took 27-minutes off my PB – Runner’s World (UK)

Two things to know about me – I’m not very good at resting on rest days, or sticking to a plan. In past training schedules I’ve chopped and changed sessions as I went and opted to do high intensity gym classes over letting my legs recover. It’s safe to say, I wasn’t the obvious choice for a feature on training for a marathon listening solely to a running watch. ‘You do realise, if it tells you to take 48 hours off you’ll need to’ my colleagues warned – ‘sure’ I replied, ‘how hard can it be?’

Choosing the watch

Choosing a watch happened somewhat by default as I’d been running with a Garmin (Forerunner 645, to be precise) for a few months, so decided to stick with it and use a Garmin plan. There are of course many other watches that offer the same thing, there is a list at the end of the feature, but Garmin is still a firm favourite with running community as a whole.

I’m not the most tech savvy and had been using the watch to track the obvious metrics – distance, pace, cadence and calories. I’d linked it to Strava and manually uploaded a couple of speed sessions to practise on the track and that’s where the tech side of my training ended. I’d ignored everything else it had told me, from my heart rate zones to my V02 max and the watches estimated rest time after I finished a session.

Now these elements aren’t crucial when choosing a watch to train with, but it is worth considering what you might want from your watch going forward, before committing. Most of the mid-range running watches on the market will include all of these features, but if you’re opting for a Fitbit, it might not be as advanced.

Choosing a training plan

When it came to selecting a training plan, Garmin offers three options – level 1, level 2 and level 3, each of which had the option to train with or without heart rate. In order to find these plans, runners need to log on to Garmin Connect on a computer, and click on training plans under the training tab. Being my second marathon, I somewhat brazenly selected the intermediate plan and opted to train without focusing on my heart rate. I was impressed by the range of plans on offer – from a ‘getting started’ plan for beginners, to a 12-week Olympic Triathlon training schedule, Garmin have it covered.

Unlike manually writing out plans into an Excel spreadsheet, I used the online calendar to input the date of the race, then move sessions to fit around my life. I knew that I wanted to do my long runs on a Friday morning, keeping my weekends running free and my track sessions on a Monday, when my legs were rested. In order to change the days of each run, you have to manually drag and drop them on the calendar. This can seem fiddly, but it’s strangely satisfying and once you’ve finished, you can quickly sync the calendar to your watch. For those who miss seeing their plan stuck on the fridge, you can easily view the week’s training on the online calendar on your phone.

Training to time

Before this plan, I’d always selected training plans based on distance, not time. The minutes of each session varied in intensity (easy, tempo, threshold and long runs), and despite not focusing my training on a time goal, I did have to sit down with a training pace calculator in order to get a rough idea of pace. (For those who want to, you can add pace zones into your plan on Garmin Connect).

Despite my initial fears, it only took me a week to realise how much I enjoyed running to time. During the track sessions, knowing I only had 30 seconds left at threshold made it much easier to hang on than I think it would if it had been displayed in metres. On long runs, seeing the time go down was far more satisfying than watching the miles go up, and breaking the run down into blocks of time seemed to make it less monotonous.

Threshold zones and rest time

Although I’d selected to train without it, a couple of the sessions on the plan included heart rate training. Like a coach looking at your stats and commenting on your pace, on a couple of easy runs my watch buzzed constantly, reminding me that I wasn’t in the desired zone, and teaching me the important lesson that easy miles must be easy. For those new to running, or prone to running off too fast, training to heart rate has real benefits – learning when you’re running in the right zone can prevent you making easy runs too fast, or your tempo runs too slow.

At the end of each session, the watch tells you how long you should be resting and for once, I stuck to this. During my first marathon, I took weeks off for injury and often felt exhausted. This time round, skipping an F45 class for a gentle walk home felt alien and at times I felt a little fidgety, but the weekly mileage felt achievable and at no point did I skip a session because I felt it would be too difficult.

Moving things as I went

Of course, nothing ever goes to plan. At first when life got in the way, I found it irritating that I wasn’t able to drag and change the date of each session from my phone, but would have to manually find and select it from my watch – not overly complicated, but definitely something Garmin could improve.

It’s also worth highlighting that the watch cannot hold all 16 weeks of your plan at one time, so if you can’t find a session, you’ll need to sync the next few weeks onto your watch from the Garmin Connect app on your phone. Again, not an issue, but it can be irritating when you’re stood outside your front door ready to run, waiting for your phone and watch to sync. A simple reminder that you need to sync your next sessions would be beneficial.

Race day

After 16 weeks of training, I’d learnt to withstand longer stretches at threshold pace after countless mile repeats, I’d practised splitting my long runs into easy miles and race pace, and I got to the start line feeling the most prepared I’d ever been. I had my plan – to start easy and push at Tower Bridge, and I stood on the start line breaking the run down into 30 minute blocks.

Time-wise, the race itself didn’t go quite as I planned, however, when I hit the wall I had the trust I needed from my training to keep shuffling towards the finish, taking 27 minutes off my PB. Can a watch replace the knowledge of a traditional running coach? I’m not sure. But if you’ve already got one round your wrist, it’ll teach you more than a printed plan ever could.