As I transition into a more structured training program, I need to modify how I think about certain things.
First up: Steps
Garmin does an amazing job putting step metrics front and center in their app. I can easily see how many steps I’ve taken on a given day (with a nifty graph sloping up and to the right!) along with the totals and averages per day for the last week, month, or year. This is a metric I look at every single day, however it’s not something I directly target. As in, I don’t go walk around the house for thirty minutes before bed to hit a certain step number. I mostly look at my trailing 12 month average per day and I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t boost my self image to know I’m almost 2.5 times the typical recommended daily target of 10,000.
My problem with looking too much at average steps though is that my steps totals are chocked full of junk steps. I typically walk 20-30 miles each week and while I try and move at a good pace (14-15 min/mile), these miles aren’t doing a lot for my overall fitness. It’s an activity I enjoy and I think this helps out late in my 100 mile races, which is why I log as many miles as I do. An hour of walking is not overly stressful on my legs and body, however it’s also not zero stress. I definitely notice a slight difference in how my legs feel on days after I don’t get my daily walk in. Now is it a huge difference? No, and honestly most people probably wouldn’t even notice the difference, but I’ve found my legs feel just a little bit fresher when I skip the extra steps.
So as I ramp up my intensity, I need to start leaning into the fitness adage of “hard days hard, easy days easy”. So on rest days, I’ll dramatically cut back my walks to 1-2 miles max from 5 miles and slow up my pace to something closer to 16 minutes. Ideally, I get rid of the walk “workout” entirely on my rest days, but I’m not sure I can necessarily go quite that far. Maybe I’ll be able to get there once I get further into my training cycle. Regardless, I need to focus less on steps per day and accept that it’s fine for my daily averages to drop as I increase my overall intensity.