Rant 104: Running for tech's sake?

I took up running in October last year. I know, right? I, who was agile on a tennis court but who would struggle to jog for 20 minutes without wheezing and panting, was suddenly putting one foot in front of the other on a road and just running for the sake of running. As my dream job lay in pieces, as I lost confidence in my professional life, as I lost confidence in general, I somehow pulled myself up to go from fearing running to running a 10K recently. I'm aiming for a half-marathon in June. I've come quite far. And I didn't need a fitness tracker to tell me that.

Enjoying the scenery at my local Parkrun in Goole

I enjoy most aspects of running, and not just the exercise bit - meeting new people, bettering myself every time, finding new limits to my physicality and so forth. But I do notice a lot of people in the running community are obsessed with the technology that goes with it. The sheer number of fitness watches, for example, in the market today make my head spin. Not to mention all the apps that allow your phone to become a fitness tracker. Garmin, Strava, Nike, Adidas, Map My Run, and the thousands of others, all seem to cater to one taste or another. And they all let you post to social (obvious eh?) which is nice if you're in a group and want to keep each other motivated.
But do we really need all of this technology? I can see the need for elite runners to be hooked up to all sorts of devices, sure. But does Joe Bloggs? (or me who isn't really training for the Olympics anytime soon)
As we go out on a practice run around the block, do we really need a fitness watch, a mobile app, a heart-rate monitor, headphones, then music as well? (By the way, this is not to single out those with health conditions who genuinely need to monitor their heart rates when running) This gear doesn't come cheap either. Fitness watches are anything from £50 to name-your-price. Plenty of apps are free but if you want to "geek out" as one manufacturer says on its profile why not pay for the premium version to get all sorts of stats and details that even Usain Bolt may not have access to (he probably does, but you get my point)?

I have a digital watch, it cost me £7, and it has a stop watch. If you think back to when running probably became an Olympic sport, that's probably all that athletes had (swap digital for analog watch, of course!)

A kiss for my son before the Huddersfield 10K

But here's my chronology and how I came to my decision to run relatively "off-grid". When I started running back in October, I had my phone with Google Fit on it, kept in my left shorts pocket. I had music on with a set of wired headphones but I didn't have a watch. The reason I describe my get up in detail is because I came to realise I was concentrating more on the tech not hindering me than I was on things like my breathing, my gait, or my general state. Phone in the pocket jangles, accidentally swipes my workout shut; headphone wires get tangled in my hands, unit falls to ground, me frustrated, the right song doesn't come up on the player, mood deflates; constantly checking Google Fit for distance run, so not concentrating on running itself. One day in December, I cast it all away and bought the £7 watch. My next Parkrun was, for that time, my best ever. It was a defining moment. No longer was I obsessed with my distance, my average pace, my steps, my heart rate, my music, or wires. I was running, my feet were moving, and I was enjoying the scenery. (Case in point, my recent 10k in Huddersfield which is a supremely picturesque part of England so I really didn't want to miss the views. As opposed to a few runners who literally had their phones in their hands and in front of their faces! That's a safety issue to begin with.)
I know roughly what the distances are around my house so short runs are sorted for. And if I do find myself mentally drifting because there's no music to listen to, I solve math problems. Yep! I pick two random numbers and do basic arithmetic. Sometimes I get the answer right, sometimes wrong. It tells me a lot about my mental state during running, though, which I feel no app or fitness watch can ever do. Another way to keep mentally fit? I try and remember where I'm running to - especially on long runs - then I can "make" that route on Google maps on my return and see how far I've run. It's not an exact science but I don't need that much detail for what is essentially the world's oldest and simplest form of exercise.

In a similar way, my legs will remember the stress of a 10k longer than an app can. Cost: Zero, Results: Priceless.

PS: I'm raising money for Macmillan Cancer Support ahead of this June's Humber Bridge Half Marathon - also my 30th birthday. This is a humble request for donations which you can make by clicking here.