The first training runs I ever did were bare-wristed.
I was in sixth grade, at my middle school’s cross-country practice. Our coach told us to run a lap around the school, maybe three-quarters of a mile. I sauntered around with my friends, unencumbered by any pressure to perform, as our coach smoked a cigarette in the parking lot. Eventually, we tacked on laps, running two, three, four times around the school grounds. I began to feel the drive to improve: I wanted to run more, to run faster, to keep up with the older kids.
My high school coach was the first to introduce the concept of timing our runs. He told us to go to Target and buy a simple stopwatch—no bells and whistles, no GPS, no heart-rate variability tracker—just time. We used the Timex watches to track our training as we ran fartleks and interval workouts on local gravel trails. I was hooked by the improvement I saw in my race results, so I dedicated myself to running, tracking my progress, and aiming for a continuous upward trajectory.
A Runner’s Life, By the Watch
As I grew up, tracking progress became a more and more integral part…
