You finish your long run. You’re dripping sweat, lungs full, legs torched. You stop your watch on the porch—job done. But as you’re wiping your face and reaching for something cold to drink, your watch buzzes.
Unproductive.
Missed Goal.
Or—New 5K PR from the hike you did last weekend with friends.
Welcome to endurance training in 2025. Where your device tells the story, even when the story makes no sense.
We need to talk.
The Rise of Tech Dependency
In the last fifteen years, endurance sports tech has evolved at warp speed. What used to be basic mileage tracking has become full-blown performance analytics driven by AI, gamified apps, leaderboards, and social media metrics. You don’t just train anymore—you perform for the platform. And whether it’s Strava, Garmin, or Zwift, the result is the same: we’ve outsourced our decision-making.
Yes, I have all the gadgets—smart trainers, pods, rings, Vasa machines, multiple bike setups. But I’m here to tell you: it’s not making us better. In many cases, it’s making us worse.
We’ve crossed the line where tech went from being a tool to being the goal.
From Training Apps to Social Media Platforms
Let’s take Strava as an example. In 2015, it was a clean tool: pace, distance, elevation, and a few kudos. By 2020, it had evolved—more segments, more social interaction, and the ability to post photos, stories, and essentially curate your training life for public consumption.
Fast forward to today: Strava is nearly indistinguishable from Instagram. AI writes your workout captions. Your feed is driven by algorithms. You get personalized recommendations based on activity—not your goals. It’s less about how you train and more about how much you share.
It’s not a training app anymore. It’s a content platform, and your workouts are just fuel for someone else’s machine.
The Hidden Costs of Tech-Driven Training
The shift has real consequences. Here’s what I see:
1. Information Paralysis
You’re ready to train. But your sleep app says you didn’t rest well. HRV is borderline. Weather app says high humidity. Your AI-based platform auto-adjusts your workout based on all that noise. Suddenly you’re stuck—should you train or not?
Instead of moving, you’re analyzing. Athletes are getting lost in their dashboards.
2. Outsourced Decision-Making
Training and racing require judgment. How hard should I go? Should I adjust pace? Can I handle this effort? These are foundational questions. But when tech makes decisions for you—rescheduling sessions, adjusting intensity, or modifying targets—you stop learning how to manage yourself under load.
That skill? That’s everything on race day.
3. Loss of Self-Knowledge
Technology can’t feel your fatigue. It doesn’t know you missed lunch or had a stressful day. It doesn’t know your kids were up all night. It sees numbers, not life. And when you listen only to those numbers, you stop listening to your body.
You forget how to suffer, how to pace, how to adapt. And that’s a problem.
The Race Day Wake-Up Call
I’ve lived this firsthand. In 2009 at Ironman Coeur d’Alene, after a four-week layoff from training due to a car accident, I was rested but worried. My watch told me I was running six-minute miles out of T2. I believed it. And that belief almost blew up my race.
Eventually, I had to stop, literally, in a porta-john to reset. I cooled off, recalibrated, and ran my way back into a Kona roll-down slot. That moment taught me something no app ever could:
Good racing is about what you don’t do just as much as what you do.
Enter: Product 28
That’s why we’re launching Product 28 this June inside Endurance Nation. It’s not a new tech platform. It’s the opposite. It’s a movement to reconnect with the fundamental skills of being an athlete:
- Training without needing a device to validate it
- Making decisions based on how you feel, not what your app tells you
- Focusing on consistency, not completeness
- Valuing workouts for the work, not the likes
We’re going retro on purpose. Because when you cut through the noise, you find something powerful: your own experience.
Final Thoughts
If tech keeps you accountable and gets you moving, that’s great. But if it’s running your training—controlling your decisions, warping your goals, and eroding your confidence—it’s time to take a step back.
The best athletes aren’t the ones with the most data. They’re the ones who know what to do with the data—and when to ignore it.
If that resonates, come join us in Product 28.
Let’s get back to doing the work for the work’s sake.
Let’s get back to becoming better athletes.
Let’s take back control.
More on Product 28 coming soon at EnduranceNation.us
Coach Patrick
Endurance Nation
