Tuesday, December 30, 2025 – My relationship with my watch

Hi Everyone!

Happy New Year’s Eve Eve!!! Hope y’all have access to a treadmill, skis, a pool, a track, an indoor bike, … whatever keeps the lights on while this vortex of ungodly weather continues! And if you need to take a break, just take the break. Now is the time.

About a month ago, my Garmin watch up and died. Just stopped taking a charge. Or maybe it was just done with me. After about 4 weeks of consistently telling me I was becoming less and less fit despite my best efforts, maybe it was trying to tell me it had done all it could do for me and our relationship was over. Whatever the reason, we parted ways, and it was close enough to Christmas that I thought I would hand this gift idea to my husband, so I was about a month without a gps watch. At first I thought it would be hard to detransition from constantly knowing how far and how fast I was running. I had learned to run “blindly” this way, but once you “connect” in that way electronically, it’s hard to go back. I had gotten into looking at my watch for how I should be feeling before trusting what my body was actually telling me. This feels hard – does the pace justify it? Or is this as fast as I ran last week? I also became accustomed to knowing my kilometers to the point so I could update them accurately in my log. Sometimes that meant an extra tour of my block, and other times stopping 200m short of my house because I’d already “hit my number”. I liked to see what my watch thought of my performance after each run – whether it was an easy recovery run or a hard tempo. I wanted to please it. What I didn’t realize until we parted ways, was that the relationship had become emotionally exhausting. Ironic, right? It’s supposed to be there to help me, and in reality it became part of what was draining my batteries. I was never running fully free and alone and in tune with myself. But now, without my gps watch, I started running with my trusty Timex. Just the basic “Start/Stop” function to show me how long I’d been going. Some purists might say even that is too much technology, but I challenge those people to enter a dreamy reverie during a run and even somewhat accurately describe how much time has passed, or head out when tired and a little grumpy and try not to inflate the perceived time lapsed by at least 50%. I do think we need a little grounding to reality in our runs, but maybe a time will come when I’m a loose haired old hippie woman running in the mountains who just runs and stops at will and records nothing. I can see it. But for now, I still like a little bit of technology. I did have some great runs with my little Timex. I just told myself that whether I ran fast or slow, I’d call all my runs a certain pace by time. So 30 minutes would always equal a certain distance, and so would 60 minutes. Then whether I felt good or not, I could just run according to that and carry no extra baggage. I do recognize that I’m that annoying friend who tends, despite herself, to ask at the end of a run how far we actually went. But I don’t ask the pace and I don’t ask continually – just once – at the end. So not much changed in my training other than I felt freer, more self-deterministic, less judged and maybe a little happily and undeservedly optimistic. I know many of you run this way already and are saying in your heads right now: “Seanna – this is the normal and healthy way to go for runs!” I know this. But it’s also so luring to know and track every detail, and to be validated when things are going well, and to have little electronic kudos on your wrist telling you you’ve hit your goal and you’re tracking towards your goal.

I did end up getting a new Garmin for Christmas. So I’ve transitioned back to doing a few runs with it (not all my workouts though). It’s no longer telling me I’m getting worse, but it’s also not really singing my praises. I’m trying to create a healthier relationship with boundaries. I will check in less often and won’t take what it says too seriously. And if it starts telling me I suck a little too frequently, it’s out on the street with its bags – I’ve already proven I’m an independent woman and I don’t need it.

On to tomorrow’s workout! I think we’re all on different schedules this week so I won’t suggest a time for this workout – I’ll just set out the details and as usual, do as many as feel right for you.

Here is the option for hills if you can find one with good footing!

2 x full (400m) hill, 5 min tempo

3 x half hill, 5 min tempo

1 full, 1 half hill, 5 min tempo

Feel free to meet up in groups at times that work for you!

Have an awesome New Year.

Seanna