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From Fellrnr.com, Running tips
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Note that Stryd provides no information on foot strike parameters such as pronation, or foot landing position.
=The Pod=
The Stryd pod is similar to other Footpods. It's slightly larger than most, and has an LED status light on the top. Stryd uses a rechargeable battery that they claim lasts about 20 hours, though my testing indicates it lasts much less time. That's good enough for most runners, but may be a problem for longer ultramarathons. Stryd recharges wirelessly, which is nice, as I hate fiddling around with connectors or losing specialist cables. Stryd uses a 9-axis sensor rather than the typical [[Footpod]] that uses a 3-axis sensor. The Stryd pod weighs 0.32oz/9.1g, compared with the Garmin Footpod at 0.34oz/9.6g, and the rather oversized Polar Footpod at 1.0oz/28.1g.
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** '''Footpod with GPS'''. This is the ideal mode; you have your watch get all distance and pace data from Stryd, while still recording a GPS track. This will allow you to show where you've run, enable any navigation like back to start or breadcrumbs, and for things like Strava segments.
** '''Footpod without GPS'''. If your watch doesn't support the above "Footpod with GPS" mode, you have to set it to running indoors or treadmill mode where you lose all the GPS data. This works, but may not be what you want.
* '''Footpod with Power in Cadence'''. This is similar to the above scenario, but Stryd will put power into the Cadence field. That gives you access to its power estimate on a wide range of watches, but there are two significant downsides. Firstly, you don't get Cadence information, which is arguably rather more important than an estimate of power unless you're really confident that your cadence is good. Secondly, because of the Bluetooth protocol, the Cadence field has a range of 0-255, and power estimates can be quite a bit larger. Therefore, stride divides the actual power by 10, so 210 watts will appear as 21 steps/minute. Therefore, you lose a little bit of granularity, though in practice I don't think that's a huge deal. (This is only an issue for Bluetooth watches; Ant+ works fine.) <span style='color:#FF0000'>Important: Stryd have stated they are removing this feature!</span>
* '''Cycling Power Meter'''. Stryd can send the same data that a cycling power meter would, so any watch that supports the cycling power meter will support stride in the same way. This gives some good support for power, and in indoor cycling mode you should be able to get pace, distance, and cadence data from the stride as well. There are a few annoyances with this approach, the biggest one being that you get your speed in MPH or KPH rather than min/mile or min/Km which would take some getting used to if you're a runner that used to thinking in terms of pace rather than speed. The other annoyance is that all of your data files will be considered as cycling rather than running, which could confuse your training log.
* '''Connect IQ'''. The advantages of Garmin's [[Connect IQ]] are shown in the ability for Stryd to add their sensor to any Garmin watch that supports Connect IQ. If you install the Stryd Connect IQ data field, it will show the power estimate, as well as recording all of the Stryd data into the fit file. Using this data field does not stop you using the Stryd as a normal Footpod at the same time. Because the Connect IQ only gives you the power, you still have two modes of Footpod integration, giving you two modes:
Here's my notes on the testing I've done so far, and I'm actively testing and expanding this section. I've had occasional issues with devices connecting to Stryd at the beginning of a run. I've not found any pattern to this, and it seems to impact both Bluetooth and Ant+ devices, so make sure you have a connection before starting your run.
* [[Garmin Fenix 3]], [[Garmin Fenix 5X]], [[Garmin Epix]]
** Pair as a normal footpod.
** These watches have the best Stryd support, but note that Garmin has abandoned the Epix, so there's no firmware updates.
** Connect IQ gives power display, and it records all the other Stryd data like Ground Contact time.
** I found some smoothing and rounding of the pace data, but not much.
* [[Polar M400]]
** Pair as a normal footpod.
** You can set the M400 to give distance and pace from footpod, while recording GPS tracks.
** There's no smoothing of pace in the M400 so it's nicely responsive.
** You have to choose between cadence and power display, and as this is Bluetooth, you get 210 watts displayed as a cadence of 21.
** There's no cycling power support.
* [[Garmin 920XT]], [[Garmin Vivoactive]], [[Garmin Vivoactive HR]], [[Garmin 235]]** Pair as a normal footpod.
** Connect IQ gives power display, and it records all the other Stryd data like Ground Contact time.
** You can't get distance from Stryd with GPS active, which means you have to run in indoor/treadmill mode. (The 920XT /235 can have pace from Stryd with GPS, but not distance).
* [[Suunto Ambit3]], [[Suunto Ambit2]]
** Pair as a normal footpod.
** You have to ensure that the sports mode you're using is set to use a footpod. If you don't see the Ambit3 search for a footpod when you start the exercise, you need to change the configuration on the Suunto web site. (I've tested the Ambit3 Run/Ambit2 R versions.)
** If a footpod is found, the Ambit3 & Ambit2 will get pace and distance from the footpod and override the GPS data. (This means you can use the Ambit2/3 in the lowest GPS accuracy mode to extend battery life while getting accurate pace & distance from Stryd.)
** You have to choose between cadence and power display. For the Ambit3 (Bluetooth), you get 210 watts displayed as a cadence of 21. The Ambit2 (Ant+) is rather unusual in that it will halve the value of the power, so 210 watts will be displayed as 105.
** The Ambit3 & Ambit2 both do quite a bit of smoothing of pace information, so it's not quite as quick to respond as other some other watches.
** With the higher end Ambit 2/3 (above "Run" models) you can use the Stryd in bike mode and get the power estimate that way. However, I strongly believe that accurate pace and distance is vastly more useful than an estimate of power, so even the higher end watches should be used in run mode with power in cadence.
* [[Suunto Spartan Ultra]]
** Pairing The pairing of Stryd to the SSU is tricky; . It seems that if you have to pair as a footpod, then pair as a power podyou can get power in outdoor mode (but not distance/pace) and distance/pace in indoor/treadmill mode. ** You If you just pair as a footpod, you can't get get pace/distance information with GPS enabled, so you have to run in indoor/treadmill mode.
** If you have a sports mode which uses both footpod and power pod, then the Spartan only sees the footpod. Therefore, you have to choose between cadence and power display, and as this is Bluetooth, you get 210 watts displayed as a cadence of 21.
** Like the other Suunto devices, there's quite a bit of dampening that reduces responsiveness.
* [[Garmin 620]], [[Garmin 225]]
** Pair Stryd as a normal footpod.
** You can't get distance from Stryd with GPS active, which means you have to run in indoor/treadmill mode.
** You have to choose between cadence and power display.
* [[Polar V800]]. Stryd only pairs as a bike power pod, not a footpod, so you can't get it to work in running modes. You can get power from Stryd, but only in cycling modes. Even in indoor cycling mode there's no pace data from Stryd. (There's [https://twitter.com/PolarGlobal/status/846714305429032960 a tweet from the Polar Global] Twitter account on March 28<sup>th</sup> saying "Good news to share: STRYD support is coming to V800 but I'm afraid we can't share any timeline yet" in reply to a question on Stryd support in running mode.)
* [[Leikr]]. I could not get the Stryd to work with the Leikr.
* There is a widespread myth that [[Maximum Heart Rate]] can be calculated, leading to some erroneous assumptions of how a given heart rate relates to the percentage of exercise capacity. In practice, both Heart Rate and maximum estimated power require a practical test.
* A common use of heart rate data is to allow an athlete to train at their [[Lactate Threshold]], often referred to as [[Tempo Runs]]. The belief is that this training intensity is especially beneficial, though the available science indicates the opposite. If Tempo Runs made sense, then Stryd's power estimate would be quite valuable for hitting that pace accurately. I'm sure that many runners will use Stryd this way, even though the science indicates it is ineffective.
=Testing Battery Life=
I've not done a single long run that would allow me to test the battery life for an ultramarathon. However, on multiple shorter runs (25-120 minutes) I found that Stryd was reporting 10% battery life left after 5.5 hours, which is far short of the claimed 20 hours' battery life.
=Stryd For Ultrarunning?=
The claimed battery life for Stryd is only 20 hours, which is not long enough for many ultramarathons. Obviously, if you could have two Stryd pods, but that would be expensive. One option would be to use a Garmin watch that supports UltraTrac to extend the battery life along with the Stryd for accurate distance and pace. This would last for around 20 hours, and when the Stryd battery is dead, things would fall back to GPS. You may even be able to switch to normal GPS mode mid-run. I found that this worked nicely on a short run when I tested it out with the [[Garmin Fenix 3]]. I started off with the watch in UltraTrac mode and the Stryd connected. I then took the Stryd pod off to simulate the battery running out, and swapped to normal GPS mode.
[[File:Stryd And Ultratrac.jpg|center|thumb|200px|Here's the GPS track, and hopefully you can see the straight lines that you get when the watch is in UltraTrac mode and only checking GPS infrequently. On the way back I had normal GPS mode.]]
=Calibrating Stryd=
Most devices that support Stryd as a Footpod will allow for calibration. I would strongly recommend that you don't attempt to calibrate Stryd as it's so accurate, I think you're unlikely to make things better rather than worse.
