“ATTENTION!”
“RIGHT FACE”
“FORWARD, MARCH” - “DOUBLE TIME, MARCH!”
My mind raced as I tried to comprehend what was happening at 0630 in the morning. We are obviously going on a run because that’s what “Double Time” means, we’ll be on the run with the unit, 100+ Paratroopers running into the woods, a place called “Area-J”. How far were we going? Nobody knew. How fast were we running, nobody knew. All I knew was I had to stay up front with my leaders, regardless of pace or distance. Anything else simply wouldn’t do.
It was July of 2000.
Back then I really had no concept of distance, only time. We’d run for 60 to 90 minutes starting at 0630, many times not getting done until 0800 or just after. The standard back then was a 9-minute mile, but we were Paratroopers and the nation expected more from us than just the minimum. Only those dirty, nasty, LEGS (Non-Airborne) did the bare minimum. That wasn’t us. Certainly our runs were well above the 8min/mi threshold. Looking back on it I think we were getting in 6-10 miles on those long runs.
It crossed my mind to carry one of the military grade GPS’s devices, commonly known as the “Plugger” or “PLGR”: Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver. Unfortunately it was the size a dictionary and weighed as much as a brick. If only I had a GPS watch, something about the size of my G-Shock wristwatch.
I’m basically living in the future!
My COROS Pace 2 running watch is an all encompassing running computer that sits comfortably on my wrist. More than just a GPS that is tracking location, direction and speed. It’s tracking my effort levels, stride length, steps per minute, elevation gains and resting habits. When paired with my Polar H9 chest-strap heart rate monitor, I can see specific heart rate data and use it to adjust my training to be more effective.
Numbers are neat and you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
The COROS Training Hub is a pretty incredible analysis tool that can be accessed through my phone or on the desktop. The desktop application shows more detail than the phone and is always interesting to sift through after a hard run. Technology is incredible, it will show me, down to the meter exactly where I started to slow down or speed up. I can reflect back and compare these numbers with my mental and emotional state for a better understanding of what was happening.
While COROS feeds my analytical mind, when linked with Strava it connects the analytical to the social. Strava allows me to see how my friends are doing with their runs and while I try not to compare myself, it’s almost impossible. I’m a true believer that friendly competition breeds better performance. Strava tracks how many miles I’ve ran on the week, month, year and overall. I can search for local running routes and more.
Most runners that I interact with are detail oriented, goal-driven maniacs who will run circles in the parking lot to get that last 0.01mi logged on their watch (Strava will steal a 0.01!) We set goals for how many miles to run each month, how many miles we want to complete on the year. We continue to further detail these goals with certain paces and compare if we are doing better today than yesterday.
The idea of running without a GPS (COROS, Garmin, Phone, etc) can be an anxiety inducing thought. What kind of madman would run nowadays without capturing all that data?!? I floated this idea once at Run Club, to conduct a 5K run with only a starting clock at the start/finish and to run without any technology. It was not well received.
The first piece of technology I ran with was a Heart Rate Monitor. It was a simple polar HR monitor that I would use to measure my effort levels during my runs. It had a chest strap and a simple watch to display the time and my heart rate. I would reference this on my runs to ensure I was staying above a certain level for a specified amount of time. On many runs, if I felt like I was pushing hard, one glance at my heart rate would show that physiologically I wasn’t doing much, so I’d pick up the pace.
Nowadays I also include music on my runs with my open-ear, bone-conducting Aftershockz that transduce the music through the bones in my face. I’m living in the future!
For the past 25years I’ve been attempting to out-run a bad diet. It’s impossible. It can’t be done. Nutrition is the cornerstone of fitness and your ability to reach wellness. To set goals and track nutrients and meals I’m using the LoseIt application. It allows me to track every meal, every day and import my workout data. It’s pretty simple, it details energy in vs energy out. “Slim to win” is the mantra with competitive long-distance running. I don’t view this as an eating-disorder inducing spell, but rather an understanding that it’s physiologically and mathematically true that lighter is faster.
Naked Running: To run without any technology, to run free by feel only.
When was the last time you made the decision to go for a run without any technology?
What’s holding you back from doing such a run?
I remember the days of running without tech. On my weekend long-runs I would write down my route, turn by turn for my wife and give her a “No Later Than Time”. My NLT would be her initiation to start driving the route backwards and looking for me. I always promised her that if I were to pass out, I’d try to do it on the side-walk along with wearing some bright clothing to stand out against the grass and tree line.
Running wild felt good! Running wild was intuitive and it was a battle against internal will power and desire to push the limits. You can really get in tune with your breathing, stride and turnover. Your heart rate is no longer a number, a metric to be managed with manipulating pace. Your beating heart is a reminder that you are alive and have the ability to do hard things, to go a little faster or a littler further.
But I need to keep track of my total miles!
Most running apps and watches have the ability to manually add a run so you can keep track of your total mileage. In order to do this, you’ll need to run a known route with a known distance. Just start a stopwatch when you leave and record your time at the finish. You’ll still keep your mileage total going.
If runner safety is your concern, here’s a fun running game you can do in a group.
ON THE MARK
Create teams of 2 or more runners. The larger the team, the harder the task.
This can be done in a relay format or an out & back or loop route.
Each team will guess and write down there overall finishing time.
Each runner must run without any tech. No GPS, Watch, Phone, etc. Nothing.
Teams will run the relay or route individually, switching out runners after they’ve ran the course (Only 1 runner per team on the course at a time).
At the end of the event, whichever team finishes closest to the time they guessed is the winner and they’ve “Hit the mark”
This is not an event about Speed, but rather consistency and knowing yourself and your effort at pace sans-tech.
Prizes for winning can be anything the group comes up with. Have fun!
It was a week ago when I started writing this post and up to that point really hadn’t had any conversations with anyone about naked running. Then I see a social media post about the game above and then on Wednesday Dave shows up to the run forgetting his running watch. In fact, Dave was going to run naked. We had a short conversation about running sans-tech, and we both agreed it was a good thing to do every now and then.
The more I think about this topic, the more I’m noticing elements of it throughout my life.
This is called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon or in laymen terms the “Frequency illusion”. Baader-Meinhof was a German terrorist organization. The term “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon” was coined in 1994 by Terry Mullen after hearing about the terrorists for the first time, and then all of a sudden was noticing it all the time.
This cognitive bias is the tendency to notice something more often after noticing it for the first time.
Do mistake this with Google-Facebook-Twitter-TikTok algorithms designed to create frequency bias by bombarding you with advertisements associated with something you said or something you searched. This is not a phenomena of cognitive bias, it is directed advertising. Maybe I really do need that mini-fridge that holds a mini keg with draft spout?
I’m currently two weeks out from the official start of my Marathon training cycle but I think I’m going to jump the gun a little with a 5-mile run tomorrow. Yes, I’ll be running with all my tech. Yes, I’ll be using it all because, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”.
My Tech / Gear
COROS Pace 2
Polar H9 Heart Rate Chest Strap
Shokz OpenRun Headphones
Apple Phone
Oakley Sunglasses
BOCO Gear Running Hat
Osprey Running Vest with 1.5L water pouch