Running Time

Living gratefully today, I am taking time to do what is important to me, including writing and enjoying morning coffee.

More thoughts on the timing devices that came up the other day.  I know there are plenty of high-tech devices to use on my many runs, but I use a simple (and cheap) wrist watch that has a stopwatch mode. Functional, not fancy.

I like to know how long I have been running and usually go for round numbers and 5-minute increments. There isn't much difference in my legs and lungs between running 59 minutes and 10 seconds or running one hour. In my head though, there is a difference. One hour seems like more of an accomplishment.

Running is one place I can be particular and picky about time. When I am training and trying to push myself, having some sense of what my minutes-per-mile pace is can be helpful. When I am doing tempo runs, it matters to know if I have been running faster for 4 minutes or 6.

I appreciate time updates out on the course when I am running a race or official course of some kind.

There's no clock in this realm of running that I like seeing more though than the clock, usually pretty visible, at the finish lines of marathons. That is a beautiful sight for sore legs and happy heart.

When it comes down to it though, it still is more about the experience and activity that happens within that time than the actual amount of time itself. Time-keeper or time-spender?  More on that soon.

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