Posts Tagged ‘#watchlessmonday’

As the self-proclaimed president and one of the few remaining members of #watchlessmonday, I hereby announce my resignation. Sort of. I wore my Garmin today for the first time on a Monday since early April. I had 9 runs on Mondays without wearing a watch, including a race. The point of Watchless Monday was to get me out of my element and to do something different. It worked. It got me out of my comfort zone at times, while other times I was probably running too slow. It was fun while it lasted.

Now here comes the BUT. While I’m officially ending my Watchless Monday campaign, I will continue to have an occasional run without a watch. As I get closer to marathon training, I’ll want the break every once in a while. It’s worth running without the watch every so often. These past two months without a watch once a week has changed me. I truly believe that, but as with most things with running, when things start to feel too routine, it’s time to change it up. Intentionally not wearing my Garmin on Monday started to feel cartoonish.

That being said, I will continue to urge people to go watchless or technology-less to break up the feeling that they’re necessary every single time out there. Running just to run is a great feeling that we all need. I get that feeling now even if I do wear my Garmin, so I am calling Watchless Monday a success for me. Now it’ll just be #watchlesswheneverifeellikeit.

As for having my watch today, I had a decent progressive run with mile splits of 9:06, 8:31, 8:30 and 8:04 (a slight downhill mile), with the final tenth in 44 seconds. It’s not quite what I would call speedwork, but it’s still different from what I’m used to. While it was still hot in Roanoke today – about 80 for the lunch run – the humidity was much lower.

I’m excited about seeing what happens in my 5k this weekend. I feel like I’ve had something to unleash on my runs recently and I need the race atmosphere to do it. My faster pace on everyday runs and doing a couple of progressive runs have given me a boost.

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Here’s a look at today’s run on a map, plus the elevation profile. I hope to post more of these this summer as I get as focused as I possibly can on my individual runs:

For those who didn’t “get it,” #watchlessmonday was not intended to be a one-time event. It’s something you should try for every week. It seems the fun of it came and went fairly quickly on Twitter after a few days of initial excitement.

The best response was this post from Tara who blogs at A Life Changing Journey. The end of her post sums up the point of #watchlessmonday very well: “I didn’t need my garmin to tell me I have endurance. … I didn’t need the garmin to tell me I can run fast. … I didn’t need the garmin to tell me how far I was running. … I didn’t need the validation of a gadget. … I just needed me.”

There were also some great excuses of not doing it, including “I don’t run on Monday” (read the original post; it doesn’t matter) and a few from people worrying about how far they’d run. Um, that’s why running just to run is fun — the “not knowing” element. Take a familiar route or map it out BEFORE you run if that’s what you’re worried about.

Whether #watchlessmonday lives on with others or not is yet to be seen, but I certainly plan to keep doing it. I’ve now gone watchless three Mondays in a row and am considering doing it more often. It’s so liberating to get out there and not worry about pace or time or distance. Give it a try if you haven’t. It’s not nearly as difficult as you think it is.

Image: Giovanni Sades / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I think most runners are guilty of being way too addicted to their times/paces and their Garmins/watches/other GPS-related devices. So I, and quite a few others, are here to stop it for at least one day a week.

Late last week, a few of us on Twitter started a conversation about running without a watch to kick off the week. Several tweets and a few emails later between me, @AHealthyDad, @262milejourney, and @suzistorm here’s what we’ve come up with — #watchlessmonday.

Here’s what you do: for the first run of your week, don’t wear a watch. It’s that simple. While I’d really like to make this a completely unplugged commitment, I’ll forgive you for now if you have to have music to listen to. I hope, eventually, you’d give that up for at least a day. If you don’t run on Mondays or your change your weekly plans, don’t let that be an excuse. Whether your first run is Monday, Tuesday or whenever, make that first one watchless.

When you’re done with your run, come back and let everyone know you did it on Twitter with the #watchlessmonday tag (if it’s later in the week, still use #watchlessmonday so we can easily keep track).

Why are we doing this? Simply put, to get rid of the addiction. Is your pace or time important? Sure. But do you need to know what it is every single time you go out. Absolutely not. This is about running for the fun of running. That’s what I’m adding this to my #2011commitments posts (I know, I know, I’m behind on my weigh-in posts).

Be on the lookout for more posts about #watchlessmonday from the above tweeters. Suzi’s site can be found here, and she’s actually discussing #watchlessmonday over on the Geeks in Running Shoes show tonight. You can find Brandon here. (You’ll see him on my blog in a Q&A later this week!) And 262milejourney can be found here.

Lastly, a lot of people on Twitter have already said, “I’m in.” Some of those people are: @wordsbykara, @SuprHero, @cheekysu, @hotbirdrunning, @Blanda_Amania, @sarahtbland, @teamoptimus, @therunningwench, @welcometoboston, @CocosFight2BFit, @corriemaeowen, @tryn2bfit and @laidbackchick. If I’ve missed you, please let me know in the comments section below (please include your Twitter handle) or on Twitter and I’ll continue to update this list. If you’re not on Twitter, but want to make this commitment, leave a comment below. Being on Twitter is not a requirement to join in on this.