Committing to run 42 kilometres (or 26.2 miles) isn’t for the faint of heart. Endless days of pounding the pavement while training your body to endure such tough demands can take a massive toll on your body – even more so if you’re running competitively. When you’re putting your body through the rigours taking care of it as much as possible isn’t a luxury – it’s crucial to preventing injury and fatigue.

Enter Cronometer. The nutrition app that works as hard as you.

Cronometer for Marathoners

Cronometer goes beyond the nutrition label; giving you accurate and comprehensive data you can count on to achieve your best results. How do you harness the power of all that data to get elevated results for your marathon? We interviewed Cronometer staffer, Robbie, for all the insider tips and tricks he uses to train for his marathon this June. Read on to learn how he’s using Cronometer to garner results:

Custom Biometrics

Robbie created two custom run biometrics; “Planned Run” and “Run”. At the beginning of the week he lays out a schedule – both for the days and the distances he hopes to accomplish in that week. Then he logs what he actually runs – this helps to determine if he is keeping to his schedule and meeting his goals.

Notes + Photo Notes

They say pictures are worth 1,000 words and Robbie agrees this feature adds another dimension to his training. Everyday Robbie trains he photographs the conditions outside; we live in an area with extreme weather patterns and things like 2 fresh feet of snow can hamper results. By noting the conditions Robbie adds additional perspective to his trends.

Sleep Biometric

Rest and recovery are equally as important to your training as physically logging the miles. Adequate sleep plays a huge roll in your body’s ability to recover from the onslaught of activity. Robbie logs the duration of sleep into Cronometer every morning when he wakes up. Over time he can then determine how much rest he needs to perform optimally.

Nutrition Tracking

Cronometer has tools to help you track virtually anything and everything but where we really shine is the quality of our nutrition data. With a huge emphasis on micronutrients (and accurate nutrient profiles!) you can learn the correlation between your energy levels and vitamin and mineral intake. Are your legs cramping? Being deficient in magnesium could be the culprit. Are you constantly fatigued? Perhaps you need to pay attention to your electrolyte levels. Harness the power of all the data to better learn your body.

Beyond the benefits of micronutrient tracking Robbie is getting back to the basics by simply monitoring his caloric intake. By tracking how many calories he’s burning Robbie is able to eat accordingly. Long run days require more calories consumption to maintain his weight; shorter run days require less.

Activity Tracker Sync

One of Robbie’s secret weapons is pairing an activity tracker with Cronometer. His Fitbit data automatically syncs with the app and gives him realtime stats on calories burned, sleep and heart rate. By using this tracker he knows exactly how many calories he’s burning which goes hand in hand with tracking his nutrition.