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Smart watch technology catching on in high school cross country

Published by
DyeStat.com   Oct 4th 2017, 6:39pm
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Smart watches: The Swiss army knife of high school cross country

By Marlowe Hereford for Dyestat

Dirt to rubberized asphalt, yards to meters, hand timing to chips and stop watches to smart watches, they’ve all marked the progression of cross country and track and field.

New technology has put the abilities of record keeping, mileage and pace tracking and, of course, timing, all in one device on the wrist that is becoming more commonplace in high school cross country.

Coaches Jody Benson of Timpanogos High (Orem, Utah), Ken Quinn of Serrano (Phelan, Calif.), John Sipple of Downers Grove North (Downers Grove, Ill.) and Brandon Bear of Blacksburg (Blacksburg, Va.) have had various experiences using smart watches in their cross country programs in the past decade.

All have found the watches to be useful tools and some have incorporated their use into team workouts.

Technology to monitor workouts

Benson said he began using smart watches with his team nearly a decade ago when he purchased five Garmins — watches that feature WiFi capability, Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation services, heart rate information and activity tracking.

Since then, Benson and his athletes have used Garmins to track mileage, pace and cadence. With up to 80 athletes in his program from year to year, the watches allow him to divide the team into workout groups and have at least one person in each group wear a Garmin.

We kind of break them down into varsity then into JV 1 and JV 2,” Benson said. “On a distance day, on a recovery day, on a hard day, this is what pace we want to be at. When you’re out on the course or on the road, it’s given us an opportunity to specialize our training for each group of athletes. That’s so helpful. I don’t have to be all these different places at once.”

Benson used to record Timpanogos workouts on spreadsheets. He now uses Strava — a Web site and mobile app that records activity, distance, pace and speed. This not only allows Benson and his athletes to keep track of mileage during the season, but reference previous seasons of using Garmins and Strava. He is also able to post workouts for runners to complete in the offseason.

With Strava, I can look back four years, what we did at this time (that) year,” Benson said. “I’m able to go back and look at that pace or see if that’s something that I want to change or add or subtract.”

Improving year by year

Quinn started using technology to track workouts of his athletes 10 years ago by attaching a Cateye — a device with a sensor connected to the spokes of the front tire of his bicycle to measure pace and mileage. He has been using Map My Run — a mobile app similar to Strava that his coaches also use if they don’t use a smart watch.

Over the past six years, he estimates that 90 percent of his varsity runners own Nike or Garmin watches.

The first time the watches were used in a workout, a somewhat humorous scene unfolded as his athletes raised their watches to lock the GPS function with satellites.

“I thought they were raising their hands to ask questions,” Quinn said with a laugh.

Like Benson, Quinn has found smart watches and mobile apps useful for dividing his runners into groups and recording their workouts. While there is ongoing trial and error as technology changes and improves, Serrano’s first year using smart watches had arguably the most trial and error, with different brands of watches producing different mileage numbers for the same workout.

Quinn said technology has caught up since that first year, and there isn’t as much discrepancy between devices. Within the last year, Serrano added the use of Google Classrooms to record workouts over several months and for his runners to check instructions during the offseason.

Google Classroom is a free program for school districts that allow students to access daily assignments from any laptop or computer and save their progress to Google Drive.

“What it’s done for my kids is it’s made them more invested in it,” Quinn said. “Now they know exactly to the tenth what they ran.”

'Specific Instructions'

Sipple said one or two of his athletes have a Fitbit wireless activated activity tracker, but far more of them have something similar to a Garmin. Sipple owns a Garmin vivoactive watch, a lightweight touch screen smart watch with GPS, multiple sport activity tracker apps and Bluetooth capability to connect to smart phones.

Sipple has found the Garmin vicoactive to be more durable and have better GPS functionality than the Nike GPS watch he previously owned. One of his assistant coaches also owns a Garmin.

The watches have been beneficial for pacing and instructing Downers Grove North runners.

“We’re more or less worried about the amount of time that we’re running – not so much the GPS (distance),” Sipple said. “Whether or not you want to run a particular pace when you’re on a course that’s not necessarily measured out or when you’re trying to keep them from going faster than a certain pace, I can give them more specific instructions.”

Like Benson and Quinn, Sipple has noticed greater involvement from his athletes thanks to the information the watches provide.

“Their feedback on their running logs is more detailed,” Sipple said. “That has helped us with the feedback we get from them to modify things moving forward.”

Measured Approach

Bear said he has previously used smart watches for his own individual training and some of his more dedicated runners at Blacksburg use Fitbits and smart watches. Blacksburg does not currently implement smart watches as part of its training, although he considered it upon becoming head coach two years ago.

“I quickly learned the power of simplicity,” Bear said with a laugh. “I was gonna get these kids get heart monitors. I was gonna do all this stuff. Within a couple months, I started to prune that back. There’s a lot of these things we can do, but we shouldn’t do them all at once.”

Bear described his athletes as very self-aware. With or without smart watches, Bear said Blacksburg runners remain conscientious.

“They’re very aware of their eating,” Bear said. “They’re very aware of their training. Even with my young ones, they do take care of themselves. They’re concerned if they miss a few days if they’re sick because they see all the work that goes into making varsity.”

While Benson, Quinn, Sipple and Bear use technology differently during the season and offseason, all four coaches said they recognize long-term benefits of using smart watches and similar devices.

Upon seeing firsthand what implementing technology has done for his program, Benson said he remains open to additional ways he can use it as a coach.

“There’s a lot of things in the last year I’m still learning about,” Benson said. “We’re gonna continue to use it and hopefully technology continues to improve.”

Smart watches and Fitbits have also been a source of clean fun for Downers Grove North. Sipple has seen some of his athletes and coaches initiate Fitbit steps challenges outside of practice, and neighboring school districts have similar challenges as part of wellness programs. Sometimes it gets competitive.

“It’s a fun little side thing we do,” Sipple said. “They’re surprised at how much I’m on my feet at school.”

Quinn and Bear have considered the investment aspect of smart watches. While several of his female athletes continue their careers in college, Quinn said he has noticed several of his athletes keep using their watches whether they pursue collegiate running or not.

“Something that they realize is it’s a one-time investment and it helps them with their lifetime pursuit of fitness,” Quinn said.

While using technology isn’t a big focus while coaching Blacksburg’s program, Bear said he would suggest to his outgoing seniors to consider purchasing a smart watch to aid them for training after graduation. He has seen a number of adults use smart watches and similar devices to stay fit, including his mother who uses a Fitbit, and he realizes that his runners could benefit from that technology as they transition into adulthood.

“I’d definitely promote that as a tool,” Bear said. “Priorities change. It’d be something where I’d sit down with them and say, ‘It’s gonna be a lot harder to stay fit when you’re in college or you enter the work force.’ Part of my mentality is not so much about winning state titles, but living healthy lives and making good life choices.”



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