Guidance from above

Strapped to my wrist, button pressed
jogging, walking or at rest
every step is measured with precision
on how I’ve run without derision.
The heavens track from out in space
where, how fast, my time and pace.
My watch reports without a flaw,
but perhaps, dear God, you can do more!
I don’t mean to be a little rude
but I would like so much to improve.
Could you give instructions to the letter
on what steps to take so I do better?
Now I’m not asking for heaven from you
just a few seconds from my PB will do.

Richard Scutter 15 December 2012

Published in the ACT Veterans Athletics Vetrunner – February 2013

Footnote …

Perhaps you already have a satelite watch. I bought a ‘Garmin’ version in the middle of last year – nothing fancy but I’m impressed with all the watch can do to give information on every walk, run or cycle (not that I currently use it for cycling).

Some-time after my initial purchase I discovered an amazing feature. At that stage I had quite a few runs recorded in the watch history, and some in England while overseas. When I connected the watch to the ‘Garmin Connect’ section of their Website I realised I could store all my watch history on their site against my name but extra detail was available on transfer. This included 1 km splits on every run, my average moving pace as distinct from my average pace – the time spent ‘stopped’ was also recorded, and elevation loss and gain throughout the run and much of this data can be downloaded to a spreadsheet.

The one feature that really impressed me was the trace-map of my run also viewable from a satellite perspective. This showed me the route taken of some UK runs that I had completely forgotten. Coupled to this feature is the ability to re-run the run using the player feature – an icon will follow the exact route taken and at any stage this can be stopped to see time/distance/pace/elevation. It doesn’t end there. All this information can be made public to the Garmin Sport community. You can access all the courses and people that share their runs in this way – a world-wide depository which can be viewed at leisure on your computer.

Of course it is always wonderful to run without a watch and enjoy getting out and moving air without any thought of time!