The Pleasure of Limiting Tech

I knew I was about 8km into the Woodley 10km event, not because my watch was telling me so but because it was a local event for me and having studied the route map before hand I knew once I had passed The George pub that’s how far I had covered. 

I was surprised because in my focused state of mind I had completely failed to spot the 6km, 7km or 8km markers and I was doubting myself.  If I had been doing this event 12 months earlier I would have simply flicked my wrist over and checked my Garmin 735 XT which would have told me exactly how far I had gone and how long I had taken, what my pace was, along with how fast my heart was beating. 

That Garmin 735 XT is currently sat in a drawer alongside an identical one,  both of which had died shortly after the 1 year warranty had expired on them. 

Both died whilst swimming. 

This was slightly concerning as it’s designed as a triathlon watch, so rather than stumping up more cash for another one I had started to look for an alternative, but my heart was not in it at the time. 

I wasn’t doing much swimming over the winter, my bike training was on a stationary Wattbike Atom setup in the lounge and my running was non-existent due to my slow recovery from an Achilles issue which had brought the 2018 season to a hobbling halt before it really got started. At the end of December I took my first slow and steady attempt at a run in almost 6 months at the weekly 5km Woodley Parkrun. 

There was a lot of careful stretching involved before and after.  It went ok, slow but pain free.  Rather than tracking it via a multi-sport watch I tracked the run on the Strava app on my phone which I had tucked away in a running belt.

The thing I noticed even after just that one run was that I really enjoyed just running based on feel.  Tuning into my body as well as the world around me rather than checking my watch to see how I was doing against a pace I might have set in my head.  Another run a couple of days later reinforced the same feelings and thoughts, and so it was that I decided that – for the moment – I wasn’t going to buy another multi-sport watch and would just see how things went. 

Almost 4 months later I have not succumbed to the lure of shiny new tech – yet.  As a cyclist – where it’s all about the numbers – it’s been liberating.  Don’t get me wrong, I am still tracking the runs on Strava via my phone and analysing them afterwards but that is separate, and I am just running on feel and enjoying focusing on the here and now as I run. 

This has resulted in some planned 5km runs ending up as much longer ones. Sometimes when just going out for a run I have felt strong and ran faster than I was expecting.  Interestingly not once so far have I cut a run short. Overall I have been enjoying the running much more than I previously ever did. 

Before the pleasure was in seeing the numbers improve. 

Now I can feel changes in my running stride.  2 weeks ago was the first time this year I had felt the “bounce” in my stride since getting injured in May last year, and that “bounce” propelled me to my first sub 25min Park Run in almost a year. 

At this moment in the last couple of km of the Woodley 10k the “bounce” was still there, even if my breathing was hard and my heart was pounding. My goal for this – my first ever 10km race – had been to beat 55 minutes and get as close to 50 minutes as possible – even potentially dipping under it. 

I had passed the 55 minute pacer around 2km in (I had started slow) but still had not seen the 50 minute pacer even on the long downhill section so I had calculated I was probably aiming at somewhere between 52-53 minutes.  ‘Not bad’ I thought to myself, but I was determined to focus on keeping things pushing along and making sure I actually spotted the 9km marker board. 

A few minutes later after a long gentle climb the 9km marker came into sight.  Only 1km left to go.  A couple of other runners had gone past me at a really good pace in the past kilometre and now was my turn to very gently apply a little more pressure.  There wasn’t a lot extra to give but it was enough to catch and distance a couple of ‘targets’ that had been around 20m ahead of me for the past 10 minutes or so.  Then the finish line was in sight and I found a tiny bit more to give, carefully as speed (along with hills) seems to be one of the major issues for my Achilles.

My first 10km race was done. 

I had completely missed looking at the finish line clock as I came across – I really was in the zone.  So I pulled out my phone, unlocked it and stopped Strava.  50:38.  Wow!  Very pleasantly surprised. But with the delay to stopping it and knowing I had started and tucked it away before I had crossed the start line how close had I actually got to my stretch goal of 50 minutes?  A few minutes later I got to print out my official chip time – 50:01. 

Brilliant and Gutting all in one.  2 seconds away from breaking 50:00 for the event.  It also raised the question of where on earth was the 50 minute pacer – I imagine they finished well ahead of 50 minutes.

The key thing though was I had really enjoyed the run, had pushed myself along based on feel and achieved my fastest ever 10km run.  If I had been wearing my watch would i have run any faster? Maybe, but probably not – and I certainly would not have enjoyed it as much as my mind would have been calculating possibilities and probably pushing myself too hard at points. 

Now I know tech can be very useful, I sometimes ride to a heart rate or power output to try and wring the best out myself, and I am sure elite athletes and many people close to that level can gain from them in events due to dedicated coaching programs, but for mere mortals such as myself who are doing this for a mixture of challenge, fitness and fun I feel that sometimes tech can get in the way. 

Embrace the moment and analyse things at a later stage.

Postscript – Once uploaded Strava suggested I had run 10.12km and gave my best estimated 10km at 49:28 – I think that Strava is being a bit keen there but I will take that the 10km was sub 50 minutes. 

Nice.