I love running. I love how good it makes me feel, both physically and mentally. I love making plans and seeing my fitness improve when those plans are executed. I love how simple running is; put on my shoes and head out the door. Over time I’ve made it more complicated than it should be though, with GPS watches, heart rate monitors, power meters, Strava, segments, leaderboards, etc., and I’ve come to the realisation that I need to get rid of all that and simplify my running again.
My first brief love affair with running was when I was 19 and working away from home; I wanted a way to maintain and perhaps improve my fitness for weekend mountain biking adventures back home, and I turned to running. It was surprisingly tough at first but I quickly started to love it, and started increasing the distance and frequency of my runs. All of those runs were timed with a simple Casio digital watch, and that’s all I needed, as I ran the same routes over and over and just tried to beat my previous best time.
Over the last several years, following my return to running, I’ve spent more than I’d care to admit on GPS watches – devices with non-replaceable batteries that inevitability stop holding a charge after a couple of years and need replacing. Or sometimes there has been some new feature that marketing has convinced me I need, and that isn’t going to be added via a firmware update to my current watch because they want me to buy the new model. In the last couple of years I changed brands hoping for a better experience, but they have started removing features that were initially major reasons for choosing that brand.
But recently I’ve been wondering whether any of it is really necessary for me to enjoy running. Perhaps if I were 19 again and wanting to become a competitive runner then I could say maybe, but I’m closing in on 50 now, I don’t really enjoy racing and I probably won’t enter any more after I’ve run the one I’ve already signed up for in a few months. And while I still feel that I can improve on my PBs for various distances, I feel less and less inclined to try and do so.
So I’ve decided to stop worrying about heart rate zones and critical power, threshold paces and Strava segment leaderboards, I’m going to get off the cycle of replacing expensive watches every couple of years, and I’m going back to using a simple, cheap, digital watch (with replaceable battery!) to time my runs, and previous measurements or route planning apps for distances. I’ll keep a simple log, for my own eyes only (I still want to be a little bit nerdy about it), and just enjoy the running. I will pay attention to my body and be mindful of my breathing to judge whether the effort is at the right level, without worrying whether I’m exactly in the right zone, and without being annoyed by alerts when I momentarily go slightly out of it.
I have a couple of those simple Casio digital watches still, but I wanted something with slightly more functionality (splits recall, interval timer) so I’ve bought this Timex Ironman (model number: TW5M03400), which also has much greater legibility, both in terms of the size of the display and the gorgeous Indigo backlight for when I’m running in the dark. Just look at the size of those digits, and it’s super comfortable to wear.
I’ve been trying to find other people taking the same approach to running, to find advice and tips, etc., but it’s been difficult. I’m not really sure what you’d call it? Every search I’ve done for running just with a simple digital watch comes back with articles on the “best” running watch (and they’re all GPS). I’ve heard of people running without any watch at all, and calling it “naked running”, but you can imagine the kind of results those searches return… Running without a watch isn’t what I want to do yet anyway. Maybe I’ll think of something better to call what I want to do (“Simple Running”, “Low-Tech Running”), or maybe I’ll just do my own thing and not worry about it.