So, the race is on. It’s March, and time for the Jacksonville River Run, that 9.3-mile monster with a bridge on the tail end that will give you altitude sickness and make your calf muscles sue for divorce. The race is Saturday, and will attract literally thousands of runners like me who can’t understand that you don’t have to pay $30 to run 9 miles — you can do it at home for free!
I’m excited and pumped up, though, and the truth is, I’m already racing. But it has nothing to do with my feet touching the pavement 10,000 or so times. Rather, this race is to see if I can figure out my new running watch before the starting cannon fires on Saturday.
Nothing could be worse, or more embarrassing, than being trampled by 8,000 runners because I was still standing there at the start trying to figure out which button would get my watch going.
“I hit start! What’s wrong with-” SPLAT!
It’s not that it’s so complicated. It’s just that it’s not so easy. And why is beyond me. It’s a running watch. It should tell time and how much longer you have to endure the grueling misery of a road race. Why do I need three alarms, two interval timers and on-the-fly lap recall? I don’t want to recall the race. I want to forget it as fast as possible.
But it seems the more money you spend on a watch, the more they give you bells and whistles that you’ll never use, or understand. Truth is, technology is to the point that no one can ever figure it all out, so product makers could be totally lying about features and you would never know. “Yes, your watch can make coffee lattes while you run and emit a sound that will scare off a bear.”
They can promise anything. Who would know? And they tell you it can all be done with only five buttons. Five buttons? How can you do all that with only five buttons? What is it a stenography machine? Maybe you have to hit multiple key combinations at the same time. Or press this after that. Maybe there’s a shift key, or it needs to be combined with motions. Jog to the left and then leap in the air while pressing button B to get the timer rolling.
But how do you do this, or remember all of this, in the middle of a race? Jeez, in the middle of a race, I barely have the coordination or the mental wherewithal to keep my feet moving AND grab a drink of water from the water stations. I end up a twisted pretzel on the side of the road yelling for the medic.
“What happened to him? Another cramp?”
“No, he tried to drink water without any eye-hand coordination. He also ruptured his spleen.”
And I didn’t even get a fancy running watch. Some can record hundreds of laps. Some can plot your position by satellite and tell you how far you have run, or still need to go. Some will hook up to a heart monitor.
I don’t need these things. I’m a very straight-forward runner: I point myself straight-forward and start running. That’s all I need.
My heart rate? If I’m concerned about that, I’ll place my hand over my chest, feel for a beat, and if I find one, I’ll keep running. If I don’t, my plan is to lay down on the side of the road and start covering myself with leaves. Later they can come along and put a memorial there for me.
So we’ll see what happens with the new watch on Saturday. I’m hopeful, but I could also get distracted and end up running to Gainesville, or fall in the river. At least you don’t have to pay extra for that.