A couple of years ago, I was on pace to a PB at a local 5k when I caught movement to my right. I turned and saw a deer running parallel with the course fifty feet away. Suddenly it turned left, straight toward the course and the guy in front of me, I yelled "Look out Deer! Deer, Deer!" as it bound over the ditch and smack into the unsuspecting runner*. The runner had been wearing an IPod, tunes blaring when the hit and run occurred and he literally had no idea what had happened. Would he have been hit if he hadn't been wearing an IPod?
Technology has provided a wonderful tool box of gadgets to monitor, count and record our journeys. The 30 lap memory chrono with indiglo night light, step counters, HR monitors, GPS, IPod, coaching, nutrition and training soft wear and aps like Mapmyrun. We use our heart rate monitor to register and record our level of effort. Chrono's to record the time it takes to complete a run or repeats on the track. An IPod for motivation or just to keep the mind off the fact that we are in fact running. The GPS provides the play by play of what, where, when, how far, high and low. When home we rush to put all that data into a computer for.........?
Don't get me wrong I have all these gadgets and use them regularly but do I need to? When first using a GPS I was disappointed to discover that the routes I had mapped in the car as my daughter recorded the mileage I called off from the odometer where off by as much as a mile or more. That is a 17% reduction in weekly mileage, 300+ miles annually. I futzed around with my HR monitor for better than a week as the batteries died a slow death and its monitoring I had come to rely on became intermittent, leaving big gaps in my log book. Nothing slows you down more than when you drop the Ipod as you change gears for hill repeats. Then there is the dreaded lost ear buds, you frantically search for while trying to fit in a run before you have to be somewhere else. There is always the potential to get hit by a deer or texting motorist while in the middle of a tempo run, tunes blaring.
Even with the tools to monitor, count, record and numb I can't help but consider the time wasted, opportunity lost, experience missed or safety jeopardized because my head was down scrolling past the song on my IPod I wasn't in the mood for. There is a time and place for all of it I guess, what we have isn't going away and the addition of some other wonderful gadget is just around the corner. But one of the the things I have always cherished about my runs is the time I had with my thoughts and technology stuff takes away from that. Although it is pretty cool to know the elevation I gained and how fast I ran loops on the local x-country course yesterday afternoon. I have decided to step out the door technology free more often. Can't wait!
*The deer fled the scene after slipping and sliding across the tarmac and disappearing into the woods. The runner finished covered with deer hair and a busted IPod. I fell short of my goal but was able to help a fellow runner in the process.
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