If you follow me on Instagram, you already know my love for the Milestone Pod.

I was recently given the opportunity to a part of their Saucony Pod Team and I jumped at the opportunity. You see at first I didn’t know if I would get that much benefit out of the pod. What can it tell me that I don’t already know? A LOT!

We all know that we don’t have perfect form (at least most of us) but do you know where you your problems lie? The Milestone Pod is a great way to figure that out!

Let’s take a look at the pod itself:

The pod clips easily to your shoe and begins to collect data as soon as it sense movement. You don’t nee to do anything, simply lace up your shoes and get out the door!

You don’t need to run with your phone for the data to be collected. The pod will begin recording and once you get back home you can sync with your phone to check out the data for you run.

Some great things about the pod:

• It runs on a watch battery so there is nothing to remember to recharge. Keep it on your shoe and it’s ready to go anytime you want to go and run.
• No GPS signal required. The pod uses sensors and an accelerometer so you don’t need to wait for signal to get out and go.
• Syncs directly with your phone via bluetooth. It can store up to 20 hours of running/walking.
• Get new shoes? Don’t worry! You can reset your pod via the app on your phone and set it up on your new shoes. It even saves your run history! Nothing is lost.

Let’s look a little more in depth at what information the pod gives you from each of your runs:

Cadence – This is the average number of times your foot hits the ground in one minute. The ideal cadence is 180 strides per minute. As a typical rule of thumb as your cadence increases your speed will increase as well.

Stride Length – We all know the importance of your stride when running, your stride length tells you the average length one of your strides. The definition of “stride” is the distance between your left and right foot touching the ground. While you can increase your speed by increasing your stride length, but must be careful not to make the mistake of over-striding which can increase your chance of injury.

Ground Contact – Ground contact is measured in milliseconds and measures the amount of time your foot spends on the ground. Obviously as your speed increases the amount of time your foot spends on the ground decreases. Elite runners typically have a ground contact of around 200 ms.

Leg Swing – This measures how high you can get your foot off the ground towards your butt. The higher your leg swing the less work/less energy you are losing during the run.

Foot Strike – Foot strike is how and where you foot hits the ground. The app will show whether your land on your heel, mid-foot, or toe. It is ideal to have a mid-foot strike but every runner is different and form drills are a great way to work on your foot strike.

Rate of Impact – Every time you land your are putting impact on your legs and your body in general. The rate of impact measures the amount of time your body has to deal with the ground force. The lower the impact the more time your body has to spread the force out evenly.

Runficiencey – The pod takes all of your information and gives you a runficiency “grade” for each run. The more efficient you are the better.

There are many different pieces of information that the Milestone Pod can give you. It was extremely eye opening to see the areas that I was weakest in but more importantly the areas that I can improve on.

As most of you know, I thrive on setting goals. This pod gives me a lot of opportunities to focus on certain areas that I know are my weakest. I’ve already seen slight improvement in the few weeks I’ve been using the pod and to me that is WELL worth it!

Injuries are no fun and they can be very hard to handle, this little pod can help show you the areas you can improve to help decrease your risk of injury.

I currently have 3 pods that are on the most commonly worn shoes I have in my rotation. While I still use my Garmin for tracking distance, I love having the pod as an addition to that for the additional data and helping me improve my overall running form. The pod can be used to track your distance and pace and is much more affordable overall. Whichever way you choose to use your pod you will find great benefits from it!

I look forward to downloading my results at the end of every run. It also helps you to learn to focus on your form throughout your run. This not only helps your improve but it can also be a welcomed distraction. I’ve found from use of the Milestone Pod that my form is much better when I’m doing workouts, but during easy runs I seem to slack. This has enabled me to learn to really focus during my easy runs and work on keeping solid form even on the slower days.

If you are looking to up your running performance, form, and help decrease your risk of injury make sure to check out Milestone Pod!

If you would like to try out the Milestone Pod you can use my body PodTeamSara30 now through July 31st and get 30% off your entire order!