I'm experiencing a running rennaissance of sorts, ever since Jeremy gave me a GPS watch six weeks ago. I had thought I'd taken enough splits and stats and recorded enough distances and times for a lifetime, when I ran cross-country and track for four years in high school. I have enjoyed running just for the fun of it over the last decade or so, participating in the occasional race but never really pushing it. Like I said, I felt like I'd "pushed it" enough for a lifetime, back in high school.
But then: the GPS watch. You guys, taking splits is so much more fun now! It is amazing how motivational pure data can be. I've been running more seriously over the past six weeks and today I did a 5k time trial to check in on my progress. The result was a number almost as low as I ran when I was 18 at college. Granted, when I was 18, I rolled out of bed on a Saturday morning and ran that fast practically in my sleep, but still. STILL. I'm going to go ahead and put the number here since we are all friends: I ran a 5k on my own today in 24:39. I realize that many, many people can run faster than that (and this number is four full minutes slower than my own personal best) and that is awesome. But my "run that fast practically in my sleep" baseline fitness level has been more around 30 minutes for a 5k for years now, so to see it dip almost six minutes faster is a great feeling.
A GPS watch tells me my per-kilometer pace at any moment. It tells me how far I've gone and how long I've gone. It does all the things. It is a thing of great beauty.
In the olden days, I had a running watch that could: 1. tell me how many minutes I had been running; and 2. keep track of ONE split. It had a stride feature that tried to approximate distance, but it wasn't very accurate. So in those olden days, here's how I would get my race splits: ask a friend to stand at a certain point on the track (for the 1500 it was at the 100m mark and for the 3000 it was at the 200m mark). When I ran by on each lap of the race, my friend would tell me my time for the previous 400m and also write it on a piece of paper. Memorizing splits was a thing - if you had done your homework, you could tell from hearing your split if you were on pace or behind or ahead. And after the race, you could analyze the numbers on the paper to see how it all went. That was how you took splits.
So you can see how knowing my exact per-km pace at any moment while running is a bit of a revelation. And a motivation.
I do wonder if high school kids these days wear GPS watches during their races. What a help that would have been for me back in the day! But no, we just had to try to get a feel for different paces and hope for the best. Fascinating how things have changed.
