August By The Numbers
Welcome to this month’s edition of By The Numbers, where I break down data from my watch and training log to reflect on the past month.
I track a few simple metrics—average sleep, daily steps, and total workouts. I’ve been doing this monthly check in for three years now. On one hand, it’s been valuable. It’s taught me to look for patterns, and realize that just because you stayed in bed for 8 hours doesn’t mean you slept for that long.
I haven’t been locked into a training goal like I typically am. Because of that, I find my self caring less of the metics, and not wanting to deal with seeing a 67 sleep score after what subjectively felt like a good night of sleep. I’m not ditching the watch yet, but I’m considering my relationship with it.
Let’s get into it.
Steps:
Total: 299,177
Daily Average: 9688
Less than a 10k average month—which hasn’t happened since February 2026. Once I decided not to do the MMD 50k in the White Mountains in early August, running took a back seat and so, I’m not surprised to see the result. It was surprising to see that every August since 2019, until now, I’ve had at least 450k steps.
Sleep:
Average Sleep Score: 76
Average Duration: 6 hours 42 minutes
Sleep duration and sleep score dropped from July, but are up from August of last year, where my average sleep score was 74. Last year, in August and September and had weeks worth of bad sleep. My resting heart rate was high, I was tossing and turning, waking up too early and with all of that my HRV was in the gutter for 8 weeks.
That being said, when it started to tank this year—for what seemed like no reason—I was fed up. And that’s what got me thinking about going analog. Do I really need this information? I expected a months long decline like last year, but luckily I’ve climbed out of the hole.
This morning, as I’m looking at my 86 sleep score, and perfectly balance HRV, I’m wondering why would I ever get rid of this positive reinforcement?
Training
Total Workouts: 26
Lots of lifting, and not too much running. I went on 4 runs in August- which explains the lack of steps. One was a trip to the mountains, a couple of neighborhood hill workouts and a lap on my local trails. I have been training most days; olympic weightlifting, squatting, deadlifting and mountain biking have been my go to. I completed my summer goal of Zercher squatting 315.
Final Thoughts
While maybe the data is starting to get to me, I still think this is a valuable practice—especially if you’ve never done it before. If you aren’t measuring something, you’re guessing. And a lot of us tend of overestimate how many steps or hours of sleep we get. If you’re collecting this data, somewhere, somehow, you should check it out, take a look and see what you can learn about your habits and patterns. If you’re like me and have been locked into the data for a long time, maybe it’s time to go analog.
—Justin Miner